In this vulgar Anthropocene story, in our self-styled supreme species, empathy has been shelled, shot, stomped, interrogated, lynched, detained, depleted, betrayed, clubbed, bulldozed, slaughtered, unheeded and unheard. The inflictors of such harm will crumble in their time. Their child, or their child’s child, will be stranded.

In this world riddled with the strange, empty casings of the supreme ones’ self-domesticated angst, a vague, lifelong murmur from deep in my mind calls out to the universal mother, calls out to the gentle grandfather who walked me to the post office with a typewritten letter to a friend. It calls for a time when my living soul was clutched tightly, by all the love in the world.

The full piece is published at ➡️CounterPunch. Writing it caused me to take refuge with the love and happiness I felt, aged 3, with my grandfather. It’s about the refuge Tyre Nichols and George Floyd ought to have had. It’s about love for every conscious soul ever to have lived on this Earth. Empathy connects us all and brings us home.

Text image: Tim Hall, holding me. Banner image by Kelly, via Pexels.