Seventh Sermon on the Warpland

for carrying the torch through the darkest times

It is lonesome, yes. For we are the last of the loud.
— Gwendolyn Brooks, “Second Sermon on the Warpland”

Trees carry the earth’s wisdom
though so few of us ever stop to inhale. 

So this, a new urgency, I give you: Listen! Breathe!
& do not take from trees, that which you do not intend to replant.

Before an American flag, t…