Climate Yeah!ffirmations #1

Rhyming Affirmation Poems by Adam Powers

On the themes of love and climate, this is a cross-post from my other poetry blog of random rhyming affirmation: yeah!ffirmations, which you can subscribe to separately here.

The form is straightford:

1. select a word (generally a value),

2. start by stating “I am” such and such word—no matter how much you feel that might not be true—

3. then lay down a series of rhyming stories that carry the content, and your personal associations with the content, through the meter and rhyme,

4. sprinkle a couple dashes of rhetorical flourish where they make sense - and, POW!

Comparing my form notes above to those I’ll share below… so ok, it doesn’t always calculate exactly, but then again— as originator of the form: I am the form.

I would recommend reading all of these specific ones in one sitting through until the end, as the early dark is settled by the light’s rise. Broken into said parts:

1. Denial, Fear, & Loathing

2. Action, Courage, Connection (LOVE)

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Denial, Fear, & Loathing

DENIAL

I am (not) Denial
Self-deception and delusion
I put the world on trial
By fire, I live a perfect illusion

I reject your reality
And substitute my own
On principle I disagree
I dispute every unknown

Whatever it is, I disapprove
My gut - no expert - convinces me
It doesn't matter who tries to move
Me because in ignorance I'm blissfully free

At the table, with a smile
Flames surrounding close
Acknowledging "This is fine"
– this is the truth I chose

I am the epitome of contradiction
My truth is the one God divined
With a devil's advocate condition
I am hypocrisy defined

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FEAR

I am Fear
Angst anchors me away
My own shadows leer
With xenophobic dismay

A walking Nightmare
I am always at unease
Expecting crises everywhere
Stricken solipsistic freeze

I am creeping terror
I am the darkside of expectation
Disquietude and horror
I am anxious agitation

I am the ghost in the machine
I cold sweat dream dystopia
Panicked, frightened, concerning
Continually coining new phobia

I am kept up at night
By generational debt inherited and owed
Scared there’s no way to make things right
Dreading yet still treading the road

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LOATHING

I am Loathing
Full of enmity
I wear contempt like clothing
Runway walk my animosity

I revel in disgust
Abhorring systems we inhabit
This trasheap left to us
Home thrashing, warming planet

I do not like the way things work
What the common wisdom provided
I hate the haters, the apathetic, the jerks
How they’re rich-white-male lop-sided

Animated by my animus
Raging against systemic abuse
Embittered by what increasingly calamitous
Excessive consumption induces

My malice knows no limits
I despise the profiteers
Who overloaded planetary physics
I fucking hate how we got here

---

Action, Courage, Connection (LOVE)

Action (Change)

I act
I lead
Making an impact
I succeed

Taking action
I bend the course of time
My choices gain traction
Deciding how history is defined

I am working to save the world
I am fighting climate change
Through the tragic and absurd
I keep striving to make gains

Through what's happening
Actively not passively
That's the initiative being
Transformed massively

I breathe the change I want to see
Any movement feels like flying
How it all could be
With all inspired trying

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Courage (hope)

I am Courage
I laugh in the face of fear
In every occurrence
My smile perseveres

I am bold
In the face of it all
I don't fold
And don't feel small

I keep away the doubts
With pragmatic grit
I carve out the routes
Cut through dramatic shit

Keeping a heart brave and open
Radiating active love
Doesn't mean there's no hoping
Instead putting boldness above

Over a positive outlook
I am the force that keeps going
Actually doing the work
Of climate catastrophic slowing

---

Connection (LOVE)

Energy of the universe
Glue holding each other together
Channeling solar force more luminous
I am itself, Connection

I grip the natural ties binding
Me to Us, all to one another
I am the continuum reminding
Lengthening light waving colors

Every tangent connecting concepts
Webbing where Earth touches Sky
I'm where subjects become objects
Revealing the truth within the lie

Every one of us belongs together
You– I love like family
No matter plant, animal, whomever
Grounded together by more than gravity

Love expanding like electricity
Charging collective currents with abundance
Encompassing everyone, thing, and me
Interconnected compassionate Oneness