by Mary Saracino
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I weep for the world,
for women and girls
for boys and men,
living and dying at the mercy
of those without mercy,
the merciless misers,
the autocrats who have sold
their empathy for power,
their compassion for money,
who have sacrificed their souls
for privileges they did not earn—or deserve.
The world they manifest burns
with injustice, oppression, war.
I weep for the planet,
Her essence assaulted,
decimated by greed,
and insatiable lust
for all that is unholy.
I weep for our non-human kin,
all creatures, great and small
all vegetation, too,
that seeks to live and thrive
under the sunlit sky,
bathed in the moonlit darkness,
moving through the seasons
with grace, grit, and gratitude.
We humans have lost our way.
The path is strewn with
obstacles to peace and prosperity,
the carnage of millennia,
the debris of lost memories
of how it should be,
how it could be
if we joined forces and
reclaimed our roots,
celebrated our ancient origins,
honored our connections
to all that is, and ever will be.
Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press (February 2026). She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014), The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), No Matter What (Spinsters Ink 1993), and Finding Grace (Spinsters Ink 1999), and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior (Spinsters Ink 2001). She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.