I’m not sure which battle I mean here at the end of the poem? The one I won’t lose? The line wonderfully surprised me. Maybe it has something to do with awareness? Maybe it’s the battle with numbness and despair. Maybe it’s certainty? Maybe it regards hopium? Let’s go for real and grounded hope instead. It’s not the battle with fear, I’m definitely keeping that one. Maybe it’s the battle with insisting on being right. That’s a tough one. Maybe it’s the battle against battles? Un-win-able. 

Friends, we’re just trying to understand, as one, as many, as Earth.

To hold things a little more lightly. Sincere? Yes. But not so serious.

To hold our fears close, where we can keep a close eye on them.

Slow our lives and bodies down, feel the sky, trees, seek more silence.

Listening for small islands of coherence, places promised by wisdom.

And may we also be humble, surprised, uncertain as the teeth are big.

So won’t you join us, help us feel the way, bore through solid rocks.

Help us acknowledge but not indulge, the bone-deep weariness 

of one catastrophe after another. So that a wild untrammeled awareness, 

might find us again, tethering ourselves to a fire-tested hope. And inside us, 

these simple desires, to glimpse the actual thing of it, the real, the flow.

The place where spirit rises up, without struggle, to see, to feel, to know.

–Dale Biron

The writer Anne Lamott put it this way: "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people."

You keep asking for more money, and for me to “stand with the Dems.” I’ll stand with the Dems when they actually take a stand for us all. I’ll stand with the Dems when they break a few rules, peacefully yes, creatively for sure, forcefully, of course, as when dealing with any bully. I’ll stand with the Dems when they clean up their own act, rejecting our billionaire-backed political system, a.k.a. the coin-operated, oligarch plan. I’ll stand with the Dems when they stand for something real. I’ll stand with the Dems when they stop focusing on how bad “they” are and start focusing on how good “we all” could be. Which reminds me, where’s the Dem Party’s version of a Project 2025 Plan? Repeat after me, “ecological sanity, healthcare for all, bribery out of politics, ERA finally done, democracy at work, fair taxes, zero tolerance for monopolies and oligarchs, fair pay for fair work, robust peace process, applied equality.” Also, remember that political election outcome you were so afraid of? Me too! Well, it’s happened, now what? Why not say and do things that are pro-human, and pro-earth? Why not say and do things that aren’t hedge-fund approved, or billionaire-purchased, nor focus-group-backed, or sanctioned by political consultants, and please, no more tiny, “moving the Titanic deck chairs” incremental steps that keep serving up all that milquetoast, “business as usual” disappointment. Listen Dems, you feel me? I’ll stand up tall with you, even give a little money, if you’ll just keep it real. I mean really real.

–Dale Biron

1. Most importantly, the poem must be relatable. 
2. It must not be closed-off and insultingly clear. 
3. The poem can make points, but not tip over into propaganda.
4. It must tell a meaningful story using images, metaphors, big language.
5. Perfect poems help us integrate head and heart, re-center, re-member who we are when at our best.

1. If you love a poem, own it for yourself and others. 
2. Always read poems with just a skosh of liveliness. 
3. Repeat a line if it demands to be spoken again.  
4. Go with the flow, not too fast and not too slow.
5. Feature the poem's best punch line. 
6. Invite more silence into your poem speaking. 

1. What's the price of feeling disconnected from our soul?
2.  Has that price become too high to pay? 
3. What language is needed for our soul conversation?

Imagine all those things we might begin to count, if only

all the humans were counted. Internalizing the costs of

bellies unfed, mistakes unredeemed, minds unopened,

histories untaught, context revered and protected, just as

delicate roots beneath the brilliant and beautiful daffodils.

Yes, and how democracies have hobbled themselves,

where ecologies are divided by a toxic ignoring to infinity,

a systems blindness, externalized, grown as cancer grows.

And that strangest of all places we simply call “away”

which has always been the purest form of illusion, 

for our uncountable, unwanted, and thrown things.

–Dale Biron