Home(s)

Light candles now,

In your home

For the homeless. 

For the displaced

With no place

They can afford;

For the first peoples

Whose lands and cultures 

Were stolen or degraded;

For the animals

Invading your backyards. 

How dare they walk where they once lived;

For those on islands

Swamped by the rising water,

Ocean where there once was land;

For those who survived a shooting,

There is no more safety,

It is lost forever;

For the addicted whose illness 

Destroys their true selves 

While the greedy make money;

For the warred upon and bombed out,

Starving and hopeless,

Not even a tent to sleep in;

For the houses and habitats

Burnt up in climate change’s fires,

And everything gone;

For the immigrants,

Losing the old lands to violence and poverty

And so violently unwelcome in the new.

Where 

Will they

Light their candles now?

This is our covenant:

Take care of the earth

And it will take care of you.

So It Is Upon Us to—

Build housing;

Make reparations;

Preserve wilderness;

End fossil fuels;

Restrict guns;

Treat addiction;

Cease fire;

Live sustainably;

Welcome immigrants. 

Create new homes

And save the old ones. 

Light candles, 

Now. 

Amen