Reflections on governance

Wednesday, 4 March 2026 | Issue 0017 | New York

To whom it may concern

I feel foreign to this dying world.
It taps and traps.
Yet I grow more unamused each day.

Others, many
more notable than I,
have, with eloquence,
articulated where
I find myself
here, now.

I am divided.

I pledge allegiance to
an born, brightly-promising world.
It is where I find my hope.
It is where I see joy and light and laughter.

My fealty notwithstanding,
I cannot force it into being.
The baby may have kicked.
The mother may have moaned.
That doesn't make
either or us
ready.

Now is the time to
prepare a place,
to remind ourselves of
simple truths:
We are here.
All of us.
On one earth.
Extraplanetary possibilities are
an unreachable expanse.

Instead of shouting so-called answers,
perhaps we should consider
beautiful questions:
How might we
fall in love with the world
enough to change it? And
how might our love
stretch itself
to tend to
what is dying
and embrace
what has yet
to become?