type: Video

Where I’m From

BY WILLIAM J. BARBER III

I am from the Atlantic coast
From eastern North Carolina, nestled in the South Atlantic watershed
I am from the land of the Sisupal, Tuscarora, The Chicory 
I am from this land of red clay and cecil soils 
I am from the four forests that shelter us The Croatan, Nantahala, Pisca, and Uwharrie
I am from the rolling slopes and the verting green
I am from fusion resistance rooted in black, white, and indigenous people
I am from this land
I am from the birthplace of environmental justice
I am from the intersection of mountain populism and eastern civil rights activism
I am from a land called the goodliest land under the canopy of Heaven
A land where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great
A land where we are called to be rather than to seem

My Oregon

BY ANDREW SCHWARTZ

One valley, sweet and verdant. 
Where blanks of mist and rain 
drip over the mountains and trees,
the fields and the leaves. 
Damp and dank.
Rich with folds of forest and fauna.
Where relief can be found in a hidden valley
or behind the curtain of the waterfall. 
It’s a place where people tell you what should be
and listen to memories of what was
transform to make sense of what is.
While mourning what will never be again.
Drought and fire, 
and all too balmy temperatures,
and sunny days when those rays should be shuttered by
grey clouds and incessant rain.
But we are, and the animals are too.
The land is the land. Still beautiful.
Still giving a glimpse of the eternal.
Still calling you home.

Where I’m From

BY MARY WEEMS

I’m from the Owens clan, grandmother
on mama’s side one of eleven, the eight women
like growing up with extra mothers,
thanks to them, part of my childhood one continuous,
proud-to-be Black, loving hug. Father,
a post-it note. Family the center
I can’t be without.

I’m from what used-to-be the ghetto, a place
of 5-row single-floor apartments, where we didn’t lock
our doors. The smells: pressed and curled hair, sweet cornbread,
chitlins, peach cobbler, greens, and blackeyed peas mixed
with the vegetables in the garden in the big yard, what wind
brought to my nose when it moved through the leaves
of our one large tree.

I’m from a time when a segregated Cleveland meant Black folks
owned our neighborhoods from E. 55 th and up, the street
an uncrossed white line in the land, the grocery stores, beauty
and barber shops, churches, and doctors and dentists’ offices
alive with everything we couldn’t get anywhere else.

I’m from water. My soul a river moving from the Nile to the Atlantic,
to Lake Erie, the flow at the E. 55 th street pier a place I breathe easier,
feel my ancestors, used to walk and talk with my late daughter.

Erie’s voice transcribed on a rusty metal break wall Help me I’m Dying,
Reminding me of the importance of taking care of this blessing,
that like people, our water can die too.

I Am From

BY LAURA TOHE

I am from the four colors of the mountains
I am from the Earth’s heartbeat
I am from thunder’s voice 
I am from rivers that flow through my veins
I am from seashells that became my fingernails
I am from rainclouds that grew my hair
I am from wind who breathed life into me
I am from where blue horses graze among yellow cattails 
I am from water, singing at dawn
I am from the mood of good catches hanging outside my window
I am dressed in the language of trees, deer, and sky
I am from autumn light
I am blessed by eagles
I am Earth surface child
What the earth gives she gives to you
In your hands
That you may know her songs 
Gifted from her heartbeat
Beating
Beating 
Beating
Inside you now
Like a drum

On Gorham Mountain

BY KUSUMITA PEDERSEN

There was a fire on Mount Desert Island
When I was one year old.
For eleven days it flamed and spread.
Where mountains come down to the sea
Their pine forests were burned away.
Westward they were left green.

When I was a child we would walk
On burned mountains with no woods,
The pink granite blackened and bare,
The trees charred stumps, around us
Low bushes, hot sun and open space,
The ocean stretching below.

We would cross a line to mountains
That had not been burned
And walk deep in pine woods
Dim, mossy and fragrant
By lakes and cool streams,
Seeing the ocean from the summit.

My father said the woods
On our burned mountains
Would be all grown back
When I had become old.
He is gone. That time is close.
O mountain where we used to walk,
I have come back to find you.

My mountain, you are green again.
Your path goes through spruce trees
Higher than the birch and aspen
Who grew first after the fire.
Only a searching eye can see
Soot-darkened stone and
Burned wood of hidden trunks.
Only from your high ridge
Can I see the ocean now.

The pines are still to come.
When they have grown tall
And your forests are dense,
I will be gone – like a tree
Consumed into air by fire.
But you, my mountain,
Will be in me still
Wherever I will live
And I will be here ever,
Still in you by the sea,
Burned and grown again.

Where I’m From

BY MAHOGANY BROWNE

I’m from the land of Awon
I’m from the bone break
City bait bridge breached 
Skyline from the song of panthers and stoic mothers.
I found my way to the land of Canarsie
Tribe of Lenape
Where the brooklyn bridge and soil of prospect park
Remain in harmonious site.
What brought me here?
But the generous wind
Still carrying plantation wounds from 1776.
What kept me here?
But the sound of the ravine
Built steep with memories of survival.
Friends 
Emissions are climbing,
Friends 
Evictions are climbing,
I can’t remember to forget the broken promises.
A constitution fractured from the bridge
To brook 
We remain 
Fortunate
in our service
To the screen 
and giving abundance
For now

Where I am From

BY PETRA THOMBS

Where I am From is the ground of being;
Born in Bed-Sty Brooklyn, The People’s Republic,
Mama came From the Great Migration to Harlem,
Daddy sailed From Trinidad in 1929, West Indian pride,
Vincente From Venezuela, Pedro From Spain.
Grandmama was Caribe Indian, her
Haitian ancestors stolen From the sands of Senegal,
Captured From The Yoruba people-
Spirited From Oshun, the Motherland, to an ocean away.
Mama’s Cherokee heritage sold onto plantations,
Our Trail of Tears, stained the unfree soil of North Carolina, the T’salagi who’ve always been From here,
They fled home to Virginia, as great granddads candy shop was set ablaze by the Klan.
I am From the children born of Mother Earth,
descended from Father Sky,
living among all my relations,
in a sweet, sweet, circle of life.
We will be whole again,
From the centuries cycle of sadness,
We will be one, we will be made whole,
back to where we are From.

Where I’m From

BY GREG ARTZNER & TERRY LEONINO

Vote for the Earth!

BY CHARLES MALONE

I am from Laurentia
Ohio’s 13th
The Great Lakes
From the maple beech forests of the Cuyahoga river
Our crooked river flows through my basement during our late summer thunderstorms
It crosses three congressional districts while feeding our cornfields and soybeans
This summer we set it on fire for the fourteenth time
Still, silver sycamores grow tall on its banks 
Deer slash through the fallen leaves
Still, the river otters and eagles are returning
Like the kayakers and cyclists who learn each bend 
Each flicker of sunset on water
For the first time in a generation

Where I’m From

BY TERÉ FOWLER-CHAPMAN

Occupied to hold an odom land
Chucks on 
Sit still on my mouth like a sawarto in deep thought
The sun beats in 
Like a hard-hardened mother beats thickness into silence 
Before seething about the same lesson for the last time 
Says, here, the coolness of water is a privilege 
Quench down the wall of your throat the sweat
Downpour 
From the inside out as a reminder 
Here, I give you what is left
Sunlight 
Sunshine 
A heat that cooks supper on empty road by noon
If it feels disrespectful 
It’s because I’m disrespected 
Here, the migrant walking with the belief of a freedom that doesn’t believe in them 
Is believing in a monsoon that is all dried up
Like the adoil 
That once believed in abundance, too
Here, would a black body drops into this land for the last time 
A haboob rises the ash from the earth and carries them home 
Mi amigo, lo siento 
Here, the meats of an aloe plant scrubs what burns so good from the tip of your tongue 
If you begin to listen as well as you speak, Teré
Mountains become montañas
Water becomes agua 
And abuelita calls you mijo before the transition even begins 
Here, you are home or you are hunting 
Es tu elección, mijo 
It is your choice, son