save the earth

September 18, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i am so in love
with non-human persons
the animal companions we keep with us
the wild ones where i may never meet them
but i can watch on videos and capture
the tiniest portion of their soul to intermingle with my soul
for a tiny portion of time
and then let them go

the languages they speak without language
the emotions they express through their bodies and eyes
the understanding i think we share
but the knowledge that it may be my own inferences
my own imaginings
my own human narrative
and not reality
that i’m picking up on

it is humbling

it is momentous

it is a way to live in the moment
and stop thinking of oneself
and instead think about
connection

i am so in love with
the creatures on this planet
and i hope to someday connect with
and see the personness inside
and hear the breathing of
the trees and flowers and soil underground
in the same way i can with those with eyes

[i think all i have to do
is listen]

September 17, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i wish i could bottle certain feelings
and uncork and inhale them when needed

last night i had a moment of utter bliss
looking around, watching adults and artists
puppeteering giant buffalo around a warehouse in brooklyn
everyone concentrating
everyone knowing
it’s an illusion but also a very real spirit
that makes this whole herd work

it’s art and community and hope and strength
and imagination and wisdom and belief
and i damn near cried because i couldn’t believe
this is real life
this is better than i could have imagined
my time on earth
would be spent

helping native persons
helping the earth

with art and performance and everything i have ever wanted to do

i suppose i’m inhaling that bottled sense again this morning
writing about it
trying to express with words what words cannot express
but can, perhaps, capture a sample
or imitate for future use

for when i feel lost

for when i feel depressed

for when i have no hope

i can remember one hundred and sixty? seventy? eighty? people
some inside a puppet
some outside observers
learners
like me
all with one goal in mind: create conversation
for the betterment of everyone on this planet
every person, human and non-human,
and doing it with
art

art that took teams and teams to imagine and map out
and build and construct
and put final touches on
and doctor and make better
and teams to map out routes and talk with other groups
and performers and city officials and advertise so more people
will see and continue a conversation we are creating
we, this team, all voluntary, all wanting to bring to life
this art, this stampede, this dream,
this imagining

this honoring

i hope those who see from the outside tomorrow and saturday
see what i saw yesterday
feel what i felt yesterday

that it’s amazing to be
here
now

with people
with buffalo
with hope
with art
with life

let us let the earth continue to provide this magic

let us help the earth

let us help the magic

August 20, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’m
always
overwhelmed

because i keep
breaking everything down
into smaller and smaller pieces

you’d think this would help

it hurts

because i keep all the pieces inside my perception
the whole and the parts
and the parts feel
so many…

for example:
i follow the backwards projection
of everything everything everything to try to
negate my own impact
on the world

i know fast fashion
is terrible for the environment
so i err towards slow fashion
i err towards second-hand
but both of these have impacts
money spent in the fashion industry
and the possibility that it won’t fit well
it will wear out
eventually
and i’ll have to make a decision
whether or not
to throw it
out

so i err towards making my own clothing
but there are still impacts:
fabric to buy
[if i know the person who makes my clothes
is working too hard
for too little pay — that still stays
when talking about who is making
the fabric when i make
my own clothing, correct?]
and all the notions
and thread
and little things
i’m still paying
into the economy — what if i want to be
completely self-sustaining?

so then we look at visible mending
the clothes i already have
with the supplies i already have
which is quite a bit
but i’m still forever getting little things:
sashiko patterns
and replacing certain embroidery thread
i know i’ll use
and darning tools
and i just want to
not
buy
anything
at
all

and on and on and on
and backwards and backwards and backwards
and when is something too warn out to wear
and how many rags can you really have
before it’s just an excuse to keep
tiny
tiny
tiny
things
everywhere everywhere everywhere around the house

i’m not explaining myself very well
but it is a thing i think about
every
single
day

August 8, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

leave it to a thunderstorm
rumbling in my bones
as my eyes watch the trees
sway and toss and turn in the intense breeze
to actually get my brain and body and heart to acknowledge
a love for being alive
on this Earth

it feels too emotional
too sincere
to share in any way but poetry
but even the words of poetry feel too simple
for the intensity of the feeling
or too flowery to really embody
the groundedness of the feeling
[though flowers are grounded too, in their growing, are they not?]

how can i explain the feeling of ‘home’
that is this living within all Earth has to offer?
i love her i love her i love her
and maybe that’s the heightened emotions talking
and maybe that’s my experience with many personifications happening
and maybe there’s a distance and a pushing that comes from
writing this hours and hours and after the experience
but my heart feels to bursting with love of this planet
and yet, i know my heart will not explode,
for everything has worked itself out over billions of years
for hearts to not literally engorge with emotion,
but the feelings align with physical signs
my heart seems to fill, to push up at my throat
as that signals to my eyes to fill with tears
just as they did last night
during the thunder and lighting and rain and realization
that i actually
at that moment
and this
love being
alive

and i have the Earth to thank

August 1, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the coyotes howl
and yip
and screech a bit
and there’s definitely more than three or four of them
and i’ve never experienced coyotes in a group, the
extent of my wild sighting(s) was
mangy
sick
solitary
scrounging around
barely alive
barely surviving
i thought the first one was a
sickly domesticated dog, until i described it to my dad
and he said
“coyote.
definitely.”

but these seemed wild and vital and collective
and though we howled back
[probably stupidly, as humans do]
we just wanted to hear them
again and again and again
for it was something few of us had ever experienced before
and might never again
and i hope nature is healing in ways
we might not be able to even see, because we are observing
[almost]
every
single
way
we’re fucking it up,
and having hope would be
fucking fantastic for my mental health
and for the physical health of
literally every living being on the planet
and the planet itself
so i hope for hope
which, definitionally is a hope itself
and in this moment it was sparked by the first wild howl
of a family of coyotes
i have ever
ever
ever heard

July 18, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i can’t tell if the sun is shining behind a thin cloud
or if the haze in the atmosphere has gotten that thick
but either way, i can feel the sun, but i can’t see the sky
i’m hoping one day this will all be some kind of
terrible
memory
dream
fiction
past

[but i’m not counting on it]

July 16, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i never thought i’d be able to see
[or smell]
fires burning hundreds of miles away

but here we are, in the haze and 90+ degrees outside
and the air that smells like melting plastic

it’s unhealthy for sensitive groups

i’d say it’s unhealthy for all of us
humans and animals and ocean and planet

and i’d love to have a summer that feels like the beginning of the world
rather than the end of it.

July 6, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s seven o’clock
and i’m writing
and the wind is blowing
and my wrist has not yet started hurting [as much as it was yesterday]
and the birds are screaming
and the dog is observing
and the cat is nowhere to be seen

the tea is hot
the coffee is ice cold
and the water is the temperature of our old house’s old pipes
[so, in the summer, not quite as cool as we’d like]
[and in the winter far too cold]
but it’s a summer day
a summer morning
and the window is open
and the rain will be falling all day today
and i hope it feels like the planet is healing
so we, as a species, can maybe follow suit.

May 30, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

what happens when the apocalypse happens
in fits and starts
and tiny bit by tiny bit?

if the future generations survive, will they look back on us
with wonder at how we made it this far?

if the future generations thrive, will they look back on us
and laugh at how foolish we were to assume
that we weren’t at the start of the middle
of the end times that they
escaped?

only hindsight is 20/20
we can only concern ourselves with the here and now
and try to institute the lessons from our own pasts
our paths to here we can re-tread, our paths forward
have not yet been paved
but i can’t stop myself from thinking myself far into the future
with wonderment
with fear
with imagination
with questions
because i’m concerned with the future of our planet
and how we can leave
here
better than we found it

[can we
leave it better than we found it???]

October 4, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

half asleep
half awake
half in love with
half the people
here on half this earth
[though i love the whole planet
like i can’t get away from
my own desires, crying when i see
a single beam of sun
encroach over the horizon
of a view i’ve never seen in real life/
or simply the leaves of trees
i always see
but rarely really
look at
on my daily commute
using human infrastructure
and human pathways
to get to human-created endeavors
and human-built buildings
but right here
are magics
we could never
ever
ever begin to
develop on our own
without the pathways led to us
for us
from the
earth]

every
single thing
on this planet
is so fucking special
i cannot
cannot
get over it

[this could include
humans
and humanity…

does it?]