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a group of people talks
about how one hundred
years ago there were people
who weren’t sure they would
survive the destruction
they began. They talk about
how they are still trying to undo
the damage, but they lived.
One hundred years from now
this group of people talks
about how when we undefined
ourselves, stopped trying
to box ourselves in, to countries,
to identities, to always othering,
we were able to move together
as one, to be stronger
as a planet of creatures descended
from creatures like us, who love,
who make sounds, who feed, and feel.
One hundred years from now,
they talk about a climate crisis
and how we turned things around.
They talk about how courageous
we were, they say we stood up
to corporate greed, stood up
to the killing off of animals,
plants, clean water, clean air,
our food, ourselves.
In the end, they say the two words:
climate crisis weren’t cliché, or
too hippy or too square, not too
paranoid or enlightened. They say
we started noticing magnolias,
patterns of butterflies, milkweed, soil,
our lungs. They say we started noticing
Earth and how we too are a part of it
and that it began with the breath,
with love, one step at a time.
Liza Wolff-Francis is the 8th Poet Laureate of Carrboro, North Carolina and she has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She is a feminist ecopoet and has taught creative writing workshops for over a decade. Her writing has been widely published and her website is