April 22, 2026
Thrilled to share Three poets on Earth Day
Lea Lewis with whom I've been writing since 2016! and whose poems I'm so honored to share on the blog AND
Claire Booqua who showed up - on break from high school! - and delighted us all last spring at A:shiwi Tribal College AND
an oldie but goodie from me, called CREED from way back in 2011 when I was young and sooo in love with New Mexico which I had only gotten to know, really know, in 2009.
What happened at that time was - I fell in love, wrote the poem, went to Mexico (also fell in love) and one day in October 2011, submitted this poem to the On Being blog and I swear to goddess, the very next day, it was published! - by an editor who was quite taken with the poem, and also with my not being sure when I was leaving Mexico and returning to New Mexico or somewhere else.
So he up and added to the end of my bio that I was in "geographical limbo"
haha little did he knew that geographical limbo - when it comes to me - is a place as real as any country you've been to or never been or this new word I've discovered in Welsh called Hiraeth, a profound and wistful longing for home; a home to which one can never return, a home perhaps that never was"
I love the idea of limbo as home, as longing, as a place you can never return which I feel evokes the Earth we find ourselves in these days.
Hope comes in pockets, like now, and when it does, I take it.
If I say much more, I won't finish this email and send it off with hope intact
--so off it goes but believe you me, a poetic rant or two, a good dose of fury and dance is taking shape, call it the bad manners of once-colonized subjects.
hurrying while hopeful
~ Shebana
The Approach by Lea Lewis
ONE
When one enters sacred land, there are rituals
where the sacredness begins.
The prayers start before one steps onto the land.
Embrace the spiritual essence.
Inhale enlightenment and purpose.
Bring the breath to the deepest part of your being.
Yam łeshnakwi, yam ik’enakwi.
Step onto the land with good intention.
Respect each step and breath that was taken by your ancestors.
Honor your own step and breath.
TWO
The landscape is sacred.
One enters this space as seen
with the eyes, ears, mouth, then heart.
When felt with the heart,
everyone’s space feels so good.
We are related.
There is love in the air we breathe.
A prayer song is sung with gratitude.
This song creates all the colors of the rainbow
red, yellow, white, and black.
We are related.
On the outskirts, there are lush rolling hills and mountains.
We are a proud group of
trees, scrubs and willows.
We are useful to everyone that enters this sacred landscape.
Everyday,
I try to go deeper into the sacredness of each person.
The journey continues.
more about Lea on the Ancestral Nature blog
Creed by Claire Booqua
I believe in the echoing calls of forgotten beings of nature that have run their course, like the dead plants who have succumbed to the drought and the insects who have followed in turn, disappearing slowly but surely after their beloved resource has gone, both now entrenched in a returning cycle, over and over, continuing.
read more (ps. claire loves clutter!)
Creed
by Shebana Coelho
On a morning, sharp with winter, fresh with cold, I rise and walk on mesa paths, red with longing-mine, red with loving-mine.
In slivers of air, here and there, smells of sage come and go.
But their memory always lingers.
Bluejays dart through juniper without even a hello. But ravens stop and chat.
From the tops of topmost branches, they say: one day, you’ll understand our conversation.
And it maddens me. By which I mean, it gladdens me beyond belief. Or rather, into it. For I do believe...
-- read the whole poem and the limbo bio here
https://onbeing.org/poetry/creed/
