by Laura Parker Roerden

Find something beautiful
and let it inform your soul.
Let it wash over you like a baptism.
Let it ask more of you than you currently give.

What is it that moves you to rise?
Make an altar of it;
catch it in the clasped palms
of your heart like a firefly, like a prayer.

Seek what is true.
You’ll know it when your blood rises
to meet it like a new born calf opens his mouth
for nourishment; rooting without knowledge.

Protect what is tender:
a seed at first crack; a hatchling turtle turning
to the light; for fragility has hidden power
only for those daring hope.

Ask what is worthy of your life
and which way is freedom?
For simple answers will come
and drown out the lies we are told.

Find something beautiful and hold it close.
Share it with others; surrender to what it knows.

Laura Parker Roerden is the founding director of Ocean Matters and the former managing editor of Educators for Social Responsibility and New Designs for Youth Development. She serves on the boards of Women Working for Oceans (W20) and Earth, Ltd. and is a member of the Pleiades Network of Women in Sustainability. She lives on her fifth generation family farm in MA.