Summit Closing Poem by Alexandria Delcourt

A Chorus of Voices
By Alexandria Delcourt

What do we think is a realistic
Time to move into actions?
A comprehensive real time,
To create new power, to expand
Visibility, to build a database
Of a thousand small victories?
As much as we want to baby
Tomorrow, it might take
a couple generations to feel
quite part of things. These things
take time that we don’t seem to have.
We’re living in extremes.
We’ve all felt it, different in degree,
Perhaps, but not in kind. A sort of
Displacement, a perennial frustration.
That progress in the past has run amok,
Suffered nihilism and solastalgia,
broken down in unhealthy soil,
contaminated the spaces in which
We live out our health sponsored
By Johnson & Johnson TM , and yet,
Here we all are, trying and talking,
Listening and collecting, mapping
And thinking, planning and hoping,
All the while knowing that more than hope,
This work must be done with courage,
Reciprocity, informed communities,
simple gardens, and resilient zones.
It takes solutions rooted in equity
to advance the work that has already
been done, but it doesn’t hurt to dream,
Either. In those dreams, there are trees
everywhere, creative people everywhere,
collaborative communities built on effervescence.
Only cattle are grazing in once brown fields,
Cornfields restored to prairies and wetlands.
The roads are paved in green, not gold.
We have looked to the histories, followed
The guidance, incorporated it into every
Sector. Our human choices are dignified,
And the planet looks the way it did
That one time when the world shut down.
We have laid our bike paths, tended
Our connections, planted the gardens
That feed our social fabric. We have thrived,
Gotten back on track, defended today.
We are strong people eating healthy food,
and all around us, friends are toasting
sesame bagels, while their grandchildren
play in the yard, laughing and kicking
their feet in their little splash pools, never
once having looked to the sky in fear.