We should have known – when
pollution turned the sun purple
and even the honest horizons
hazed over – that we were trapped
between the two halves of
the last summer solstice.
“Half day, half night,
part Earth, part sky”
was an eerie rhyme
chanted by passing time
as it dragged us along
to neither cold dark
nor scorching light,
but blank, hateful
indifferent gray.
But those moments that
always flee can only wait
so long before they mock
the tiny, private paradises
in our invisible, imaginary
worlds that collapse
with the real world
who made them possible.
What need did we ever have
for heaven when we have seen
monarch butterflies fly?
When even the orcas
have seen enough
and rally to sink the rich
when they don’t even
possess opposable thumbs?
The world never mocked us –
only begged us with
earthquakes and hurricanes,
demanding an answer
for why we constantly pray
when our creator gave us
the power to protect her.
What is the point in prophesy
when fire warns us

and smoke surrounds us –
unless it is the point of a spear?
Our best ancestors died fighting.
They were silenced by our worst
who survived on their knees,
claimed their prayers were heard
while bowing to warlord kings,
and taught the generations
that lived long enough
to birth to forget.
It no longer matters.
Our best ancestors speak
like rivers do, like planets,
primates, and pine trees do,
like lovers and you and I do:
with our bodies
and the irresistible forces
they move.

Will Falk is a biophilic author and attorney. The natural world speaks and Will’s work is how he listens. His law practice is devoted to helping Native American tribes protect their ancestral homelands and sacred sites. For the past 3 years, he has led a campaign to stop an open pit mine from destroying sacred Thacker Pass in northern Nevada. His first full-length collection of poetry When I Set the Sweetgrass Down was published in April 2023 by Homebound Publications’ Wayfarer Books. You can follow his work at willfalk.org.