Raising awareness of global concerns through a marriage of the arts.
By Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Antartica is dripping into the sea. The world’s largest glaciers are melting at an alarming rate. We live on an evolving planet. It’s reacting to us. The question is, what are we going to do about it?
By Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Pollinator populations are declining because of habitat loss, disruptions in nesting and breeding sites due to construction, pesticides, and other factors such as climate change and pollution. These insects play a crucial role in the propagation of crops and other flora. Without them, the world would be a hungry place, indeed.
By Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Despite all the doom and gloom in the planetary forecast, I like to believe there is hope the human race will see that violence and greed are detrimental to its survival and that cooperation is the only sustainable path forward.
By Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
I don’t know much about butterflies. I can recognize a Monarch when I see one, but other than that, they’re just nice to look at. Today a white one, with a wingspan of only about an inch and a half, was flitting around in the garden from hosta to vinca to sunflower to rose but never landing. Maybe it was looking for the best place to rest its wings. To and fro, lifted by the wind occasionally up to twenty feet or more, then zigzagging its way back to the flower bed—it seemed to be searching, but for what? Maybe it just likes to fly, enjoys the garden view. Maybe it’s safer in the air.
I have felt like that insect for most of my life, flitting around, looking for the perfect place to rest. We are different as I wear shoes; it doesn’t have holes in its socks. But we are both travelers, navigating our way through the flowerbed of life. It caught the wind; I chose the road, but now I have a roof and it has the sky. As I watched, I realized there was nothing between us but the rays of the sun.
dressed for the milonga . . .
across the dance floor, she glides,
pauses, glides again
First published in Contemporary Haibun Online 17:3