Poetry

Erik Johansson

By

Linda M Crate

thinking of an escape plan

i am anxious

for the future

wondering if my

ancestors

ever had to face

battles like we are today,

were they subjected

to worse?

perhaps,

they were foreigners

from wales, germany, and england;

so i don’t know

i heard the irish had it the worst

of all that came here;

i glance at heaven

praying for better days—

are we all going

to survive?

is something i worry about on a constant

basis,

and i don’t remember politics

being half this important

to me before;

yet as i stand here beneath the kind arms of trees

where peace always finds me

i find even uncertainty

creeps here

so i must throw my roots into the creek

wash away

begin again in some new way.

i still believe in goodness

when their worlds

all crash around them,

and as the rubble

falls;

do they remember hope

or do they tremble

with fear?

i want to think there was

someone waiting for them

to hold them, to brush away their tears

that they were not left alone

bleeding and broken or

dead;

my heart grieves that others should have

to suffer whilst men turn a blind eye to all they

must endure—

i know they are strong,

but no one should be forced to live through

such a horrible witness and i want to tell them everything

will be okay but i don’t even know what’s going

on in my own country;

just praying that everything will be okay for us all

i do believe there’s good in this world.

Linda M Crate

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016 and the fourth, Corvids & Magic is available now also.