Real Life Matters

The Coffee Weed
For being dubbed invasive
when all you want to do
is take root where you’re planted
and grow, grow, grow,
strain with all your might
to the sky, open your flowers
to the heat and promise
of the same sun as everyone else.
Did anyone ask you
if where you are is where
you choose to be, said,
What about here? and you said, Perfect.
Most of us are blown backward
through life, buffeted by fate
doing the very best we can
with what and where we land.
Even then the grip is tenuous,
shifting soil and slope
that can be washed away
beneath us by turbulent water
we never even knew was there.
I watch the birds out my window,
remember the man who told me,
I don’t want any sparrows around.
And why not?
Just like the other man who said
his understanding was that
Beavers are destructive
and I can’t help but wonder
to whom, and to what?
Put me in the vicinity
of a beaver dam.
I’ll build my nest with
the sparrows, sing in
the morning over breakfast and
brew my coffee from roadside weeds.
– Chris La Tray^[1]Chris La Tray kindly gave me permission to include this inspiring poem in this blog post. Thank you, Chris!

Each of us has a place in this vast and fragile world that is our collective home. You belong. I belong. We all deserve to have a fair chance to thrive upon whatever ground we find ourselves, peacefully and without judgment, fear or shame.

I will push back against any attempt to exclude, impair or diminish the worth of any other human being based upon their physical appearance, economic status, or how they identify themselves.

I’m just as guilty as you in “othering” and judging others. But I am a human being. As such, my highest purpose is to respect everyone else on this planet in love and acceptance.^[2]As for people who are truly evil or sociopathic, I acknowledge that love must have boundaries sufficient to ensure the safety and protection of others. Everyone gets invited to the party. There are no exceptions.