who finds my writings after I die,
This is a confession. I want you to see me
through my words. In life,
I wanted someone to see me,
perhaps we all do in some way
or another. See how tortured I was
about the future of our planet,
of our children, about their promised
adventures to famous rainforests
and sunsets of gold that might hold them
in a light that makes this life endurable,
even incredible. I want you to see
how I fell in love with art and writing,
with the way artists create
with pieces of their soul they can’t part with,
but in the end, let the pieces go, the way
colors fade in and out of being each hour.
Tibetan sand artists create the most
intricate designs in chalk, leave them
to rain, wind, time. I tried
to create beauty like that. Nothing
is permanent, I know, but I worried
about why our world didn’t change
for better. In the end, maybe
it doesn’t matter. I hoped to form
some truth between flight patterns
of butterflies and buzzards. I imagined
something different, but in all of it,
I just lived day to day, being human.
-Liza Wolff-Francis
Saturday's Sirens 