The Eleven Possibilities
A Poem by Echo Guernsey
I AM the EARTH thy Home
I
Thou shalt forever have the spirits of thy ancestors—mineral,
plant, animal, and all the Others from times before, reaching
back to the very first prokaryote who lived deep along the edge
of the hydrothermal vent at the bottom of the ancient sea—beside thou.
II
Thou hast always brought joy, from the caves of long ago
to the classrooms of now, with thy sweet graven images,
thy drawings and finger paintings of pink-necked giraffes
and a flurry of roses spouting forth from the blowhole
of a humpback whale. Please, thou, never stop making thy art.
III
Thou shalt take the Name of the Earth thy Home,
and all those who dwell upon her, in compassion.
IV
Remember the night sky, and help to uphold darkness unpolluted
by artificial light, so that bats and fireflies and sea turtle hatchlings,
buried in the sand but desperate for the tides, may find their way.
V
Honor thy mountain, meadow, and river kin and thy self,
that thy days may overflow with awe and a curiosity radiating deep
from thy Earth’s core and stretching up into the outer atmosphere
through which the sun’s warmth permeates and will shine
upon thee for another seven to eight billion years, before
she fades, as all forms eventually fade.
VI
Thou shalt hold all living beings tenderly in thy arms and be
careful where thou steps, mindful of all who art small or microscopic
or frightened by footfalls that, to they, appear those of a giant.
VII
Thou shalt enter love completely, as best thou can, though it is natural
for the earthworm, on days when her dreams prove vaster than the soil
can convey, to wonder how it might feel when a southeastern
breeze passes through feathers in flight.
Even thy Earth harbors her missteps and longings.
VIII
Thou shalt live in the truth of planetary oneness, honoring
that balance is possible when all that thou gives and takes
from thy Home is guided by devotion to reciprocity and symbiosis.
IX
Thou shalt bear true witness to death, welcoming
that that which grows must eventually give way to decay,
so that thou and all Others may forever be
returning to the body of the Earth, thy Home.
X
Thou shalt not need to covet belonging, as wherever thy roams—
whether lost among the pine forest at dawn, adrift in the rough
Atlantic under a reddening sky, or resting beneath the desert moon
where shadows of Joshua trees stand visible against the night—
thou art already and forevermore at home. Thou shalt
not need to covet relationality, as in every petal of every flower,
in every moth, mouse, sea otter, lonely cow, and child same as thou,
craving tenderness in a world spiraling beyond love or reason under
this veil of righteousness, thou art tethered gently to thy Earth.
XI
Remember always that thou art made of the very same stuff that made
the Earth, thy Home—stardust and swirling gases, dinosaur scales
and mosses, the whiskers of woolly mammoths and bones
of the doggie who never stopped licking the tears from thou’s cheeks
when thou was rebuked for having been born already
disgraceful, morally damaged ever since the slosh of the womb.
Thou shalt remember that because thou is made of stars
and scales, moss and mammoth, all Earth particles—
thou has always been
and thou will always be—
divinity in perpetual motion.
Echo Guernsey is a former animal behaviorist with a lifelong passion for conservation and environmental justice. She holds an MFA in Nature Writing from Western Colorado University. Beyond her writing life, she is a Buddhist Eco-Chaplain as well as a licensed funeral director and death midwife.
