Dear Now

By: Heidi Kraay

I am a thing of error and beauty

seeing much dread and wrecked faces

quivering the future

these times beyond trouble

Dear Mom

Your daughters howl
Witness country globe ripped sideways backwards

trembling disorder

America we fall down running

Dear YesterdayTomorrowNow, this is serious

My face too tight with tics to cry

still mourning

Dear You.

Grab the next hand.
Say we’re gonna be okay.

Everything’s fucked.

We’re gonna be okay.

Let’s go

And as you go we go

Notice light in our children’s eyes yet

and our children’s children and their friends and pets neighborhoods forests
and their backyards their preschools and Technicolor rainbow raincoats

Democracy looks like uprising against calamity

Dear Mr. President

This title I never thought I’d address you.

Dear Mr. --.

This planet is not your arena

These citizens not your spectators.
Masked agents not legionaries.
Immigrants not gladiators.
This country not your arsenal.
Civilians not your enemy.

To counter you.
We find calm.
Act with vigilant care.
Stand with the meek, hungry, fighting.

In my split/stirred brain,

I seek balance each moment.
Investigate the scientific makeup of kindness.
Try speaking with steadiness no matter how quaking my throat.

To act. React. With thoughtful precision.
Toward the great possibility of progress.
Hold hands with courage.
Look to weathered teachers before me. Before you.

Seeking their guidance, to fear you not.

Your lies tricks fists threats brutality war-crimes tantrums snorts growls menacing whines
We take them seriously.

Game On.

Painting by Jeanie Tomanek

Playwright Heidi Kraay flirts with other disciplines to examine links between brain, body, earth and spirit on personal, global, mythic scales and in theatrical, impossible ways. Plays include TrapDoor, Take Me Away and see in the dark. Additional projects include their memoir-adjacent essay collection 12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle. www.heidikraay.com