by Donna Hilbert
Sometimes it’s hard to love the world
but not the earth
not hard to love the earth
suffering through no fault
of its own
Sometimes it’s hard to love the world
of humans
who wrack the earth
as if it were their own
It’s not hard to love the children
of the world, but it’s hard to save them
who suffer from the failures
whose making’s not their own
It’s hard to love the world that doesn’t love
its children enough to save them
even when their heads are bowed and praying
in their church, their school, their home.
Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Enormous Blue Umbrella from Moon Tide Press, following Threnody, Moon Tide, 2022. A second edition of Gravity: New & Selected Poems is available from Moon Tide. Work has appeared in numerous journals and broadcasts including Cultural Daily, Gyroscope, Rattle, Sheila Na Gig, ONE ART, Vox Populi, The Writer’s Almanac, Lyric Life, and anthologies including The Poetry of Presence volumes I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, Boomer Girls, The Widows’ Handbook, I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing. She writes and leads workshops in Long Beach, California.
