Testimony by Rebecca Baggett

Testimony, by Rebecca Baggett.

(for my daughters)

I want to tell you that the world 
is still beautiful. 
I tell you that despite 
children raped on city streets, 
shot down in school rooms, 
despite the slow poisons seeping 
from old and hidden sins 
into our air, soil, water, 
despite the thinning film 
that encloses our aching world. 
Despite my own terror and despair. 

I want you to know that spring 
is no small thing, that 
the tender grasses curling 
like a baby's fine hairs around 
your fingers are a recurring 
miracle. I want to tell you 
that the river rocks shine 
like God, that the crisp 
voices of the orange and gold 
October leaves are laughing at death, 

I want to remind you to look 
beneath the grass, to note 
the fragile hieroglyphs 
of ant, snail, beetle. I want 
you to understand that you 
are no more and no less necessary 
than the brown recluse, the ruby- 
throated hummingbird, the humpback 
whale, the profligate mimosa. 
I want to say, like Neruda, 
that I am waiting for 
"a great and common tenderness", 
that I still believe 
we are capable of attention, 
that anyone who notices the world 
must want to save it.