It is a kind of comfort to put on
earphones and listen to a woman
named Claudia give a free, live
webinar on cultivating abundance
in one's life, rather than to the rabid
pronouncements of the self-proclaimed
savior of America as he continues to justify
the building of a border wall. While he's
once again painting a picture of the violence
allegedly sown by immigrants and illegals,
Claudia is telling me and thousands of other
listeners to close our eyes and remember
the first moment we ever felt cut off, left
behind, unworthy of any of the world's riches
or radiance. She is telling us it's possible
to change those beliefs; to picture, instead of
a fence, a gentle light radiating from the universe
all around to envelope us in benevolence and natural
abundance. We don't have to be that hurt,
lonely child anymore: don't have to believe
our place is always in the dark, don't have
to accept that only debt or poverty or struggle
is our destiny. Thoughts are things: which means
the greedy, power-tripping haters, the ones who never
give a fuck about others, will live in a narrow, joyless
world. She has us envision the life we want: reminds us
to never abandon the idea of goodness that not only
remains in the world but still overflows in it.
Poet Luisa A. Igloria (Poetry Foundation web page, author webpage ) is the winner of the 2015 Resurgence Prize (UK), the world’s first major award for ecopoetry, selected by former UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion, Alice Oswald, and Jo Shapcott. She is the author of What is Left of Wings, I Ask (2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Chapbook Prize, selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey); Bright as Mirrors Left in the Grass (Kudzu House Press eChapbook selection for Spring 2015), Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014), The Saints of Streets (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), and nine other books. She is a member of the core faculty of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University which she directed from 2009-2015. In 2018, she was the inaugural Glasgow Distinguished Writer in Residence at Washington and Lee University. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family, knits, hand-binds books, and listens to tango music.