<1 minutes of reading
The powerful provoke the powerless
to push against one another.
Their power grows by keeping us
in all kinds of prisons.
Yet we are not powerless.
Remember the black bear
roaming Clarion County, Pennsylvania,
its head trapped a month or more
in a metal-ringed pail.
Remember those who chased it for hours,
grabbed it in a perilous embrace,
carefully sawed loose those tight bonds.
Imagine what they felt as the bear
ran free into the woods.
Imagine too, the bear.
Laura Grace Weldon is the author of the poetry collections Blackbird (Grayson Books, 2019) and Tending (Aldrich Press, 2013), as well as a handbook of alternative education titled Free Range Learning (Hohm Press, 2010). Connect with her at lauragraceweldon.com or @earnestdrollery on Twitter.
The Center's campus is a workspace for Chicago-based staff, a retreat center for the Center's gatherings of thought-leaders, a laboratory in which to practice land-relationship ideas shared by Center contributors, and (one day soon) a welcoming space for periodic public events.
