Our Own Legacy

“I’m not in a good place with everything happening in the world,” this poemee said.

We talked right after the Supreme Court announced its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “What’s going on in our world impacts our ability to be effective on a daily basis,” they said.

“I’ve been able to see how empathy works in the field of social work, and that has made a heavy impression on me. My social justice pendulum swings wide,” they told me.

“I feel very lucky to work with a good group of people who I can be transparent with about how all of this affects me.”

Listener Poet Ravenna Raven

Department of Health and Social Welfare

June 2022

It’s too much.

Everything we’re sustaining

as human beings

is too much.

Give us the time and space

we need to digest

these massive waves

of social injustice.

Let it saturate, let us

be sensitive, let us vent,

let these feelings

leave our core.

Let’s meet people

in their own environments.

Let’s be present and

in the moment.

Let us rise up

and leave our own legacy

of justice and equity,

compassion and empathy!

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