Posted inCommunity

POEM: ‘take up space’

by Christiana Beckley June 2, 2022July 19, 2024

take up space

and be a Garden

welcome seeds of knowledge home

loving, naming

splitting open

knowledge means

to know

spread fireseeds

like bits of ember

sparks from sorrowed hearts

cradled and tendered

in tangles and brambles

pierce earth softly

making mesh

take up space

and be a Forest

which at times must burn,

the unbodied must rot

Double your donation during NewsMatch!

Between Nov. 1 and Dec 31. all donations to Planet Detroit will be doubled during NewsMatch, up to $1,000 per donor. If you value our journalism, now is the time to donate! Make a one-time donation today in the amount of your choosing:

Or learn about more ways to support Planet Detroit this giving season!

DONATE NOW

diversity thriving

in sunlit gaps

of breathing giants

there are those that wish

to take up space

and be an island

mining sand

from other shores

melting ancient bones to guns

to play their games of war

so we must spread

like eclipse over Golgotha

the sky dressed in

mourning shroud

sheltering in shadows

the ones

we’ve almost lost

take up space

and tell a Story

let not one beauty be forgone

the cells we share

will thank us some day

in their new bodies

lake or stone

Sign me up for Planet Detroit’s free weekly email newsletter

Give us your email, and we’ll give you our award-winning free weekly email newsletter on Fridays

Christiana Beckley

Christiana is a filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist living in Detroit since 2014. She most enjoys making art about the interconnectedness of all beings and human/nature interaction.

More by Christiana Beckley

Sign up for free weekly email updates

Support independent journalism

Donate now

Planet Detroit is the only newsroom in the state focusing on climate change, equity, and the public health issues that impact our families and our communities. Support this critical work by investing in Planet Detroit’s nonprofit local independent journalism.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Planet Detroit aims to produce quality climate, equity, health and environment journalism in the public interest that centers grassroots voices, holds power accountable, spotlights solutions + serves the community. That means we love when other outlets share our work.

Stories that are eligible for republishing contain this republishing widget. If you’re interested in republishing this story online or in print, we just have a few requirements:

Credit us.

For the byline, we prefer Author Name, Planet Detroit. At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “Planet Detroit originally published this story [link to original story]. Sign up for Planet Detroit's weekly newsletter here.”

Check the image requirements.

Photos sourced from free/Creative Commons image sources in our pieces can be republished. Outside of this, you can’t republish photographs or illustrations without written permission from the photographer.

Don’t change anything significant.

You can change the headline and/or subheading, but articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s ok to change references to time (“yesterday” to “today”) or location (“Southwest Detroit” to “here”). If you really think changing the story with additional localized copy would help, please contact us directly and we can discuss the change. We must approve the change before it goes live.

Don’t sell our stories.

We also ask that you don’t sell ads specifically meant to be placed in our stories. If you already have ads populating on your site, that’s completely fine.

Keep in contact.

Let us know if you republish our content! As a nonprofit news site, tracking the impact of our reporting and analysis is crucial. We’d love to hear more about how the work was useful to you and your outlet. And on the off chance that we ask you to remove the story from your site or apply a correction, please do so.

Use best practices for sharing.

If you do share the story on your social media accounts, we’d love it if you tagged Planet Detroit's accounts:

Twitter: @planetdetroit

Facebook: @planetdetroitnews

Instagram: @planetdetroitnews

POEM: ‘take up space’

by Christiana Beckley, Planet Detroit
June 2, 2022

					<h1>POEM: ‘take up space’</h1>
<p class="byline">by Christiana Beckley, Planet Detroit <br />June 2, 2022</p>
					
<p>take up space</p>
<p>and be a Garden</p>
<p>welcome seeds of knowledge home</p>
<p>loving, naming</p>
<p>splitting open</p>
<p>knowledge means</p>
<p>to know</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" />
<p>spread fireseeds</p>
<p>like bits of ember</p>
<p>sparks from sorrowed hearts</p>
<p>cradled and tendered</p>
<p>in tangles and brambles</p>
<p>pierce earth softly</p>
<p>making mesh</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" />
<p>take up space</p>
<p>and be a Forest</p>
<p>which at times must burn,</p>
<p>the unbodied must rot</p>
<p>diversity thriving</p>
<p>in sunlit gaps</p>
<p>of breathing giants</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" />
<p>there are those that wish</p>
<p>to take up space</p>
<p>and be an island</p>
<p>mining sand</p>
<p>from other shores</p>
<p>melting ancient bones to guns</p>
<p>to play their games of war</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" />
<p>so we must spread</p>
<p>like eclipse over Golgotha</p>
<p>the sky dressed in</p>
<p>mourning shroud</p>
<p>sheltering in shadows</p>
<p>the ones</p>
<p>we’ve almost lost</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" />
<p>take up space</p>
<p>and tell a Story</p>
<p>let not one beauty be forgone</p>
<p>the cells we share</p>
<p>will thank us some day</p>
<p>in their new bodies</p>
<p>lake or stone</p>

					<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://planetdetroit.org/2022/06/poem-take-up-space/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://planetdetroit.org&quot;&gt;Planet Detroit&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.&lt;img src=&quot;https://planetdetroit.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/pd-3300-150x150.png&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://planetdetroit.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=4495&amp;amp;ga4=G-5QQJ9SVV07&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://planetdetroit.org/2022/06/poem-take-up-space/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/planetdetroit.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p>