Just imagine when these jobs and resources run out 

— we already see the pollution,the heat, the flooding, the drought

When we inevitably will be forced to change — why wait?

Why continue with ever increasing mortality rates?

for that forced when, when we will wish more of what might have been

Oppressors die, but their harm keeps on, try climbing up a ladder with missing rungs,

Steps falling out from beneath you, even as you try with every breath in your lungs,

There is not enough effort in the world, when the foundation is sinking sand, and

the pile of bodies just makes a temporary island,

frightened and piling, these tyrants and this foundation that requires constant sacrifice

and when everything is transactional, we all pay the price

even our organizations working for change, trying for right, trying so strong

are embedded with white supremacy culture, and still are often getting it wrong

It is relentless, the harms that keep going,

but we are more powerful than we are even knowing

Where does it start — just imagine,

all the things that we might make happen,

Imagine spaces for us all, multigenerational

peace and stability that is not just relational,

but basic, the course, what becomes foundational

We are the ones who can make this future formational 

and isn’t it something far fetched, but inspirational

Just imagine — our lives with accessible, comprehensive care

to take care of our health without constant scare,

To live in communities not policed by violence

Not represented by people who legislate silence

Just imagine water without fear, without invisible poisons

without filters, without advisories for boiling,

Just imagine all the mountains who might still remain whole,

Just imagine land given back to those from whom it was stole,

Just imagine a world in which we are part of a thriving ecosystem

in which we get to live by, and learn from, ancestral wisdom

Just imagine mycelial networks, we are the strands reaching out through the earth,

we are the roots, the flowers, and the constant rebirth

The right to live is not just for the wealthy 

— just imagine all the ways that we can grow healthy, 

what we are growing is beyond just this space,

we know not to plant all our seeds in one place,

We learn about growing conditions, we learn about seasons,

about capitalism, colonialism, history, and reasons,

where to offer frameworks, support, lattice

we know it’s not one solution, but an ongoing practice

To learn and to follow the ones who have suffered,

the way something tender needs time to get tougher,

Like fruit that we harvest, which comes from tending,

Just imagine the future, which comes from mending

the harms that we’re part of, that are hard to acknowledge

this extractive, racist system holds us all hostage

We also know we must constantly root out the thorns and the weeds,

— the policies that place capital before human needs,

the wilting, the death, the desiccated way that things are

Can change into a future that’s different from what’s happened so far

These are the habits that we keep now,

but to get something different we must understand how

to see the patterns come tumbling back from where

we want to be going, the vision that’s there

It is possible, though right now it seems far away

— there is a future waiting that brings a different day

where communities are able to care for their own

and everyone is not always worn down to the bone

Imagine the steps backwards from there to here,

we have already started lifting, already are rising

— just imagine the world in which we are thriving 

Just imagine that future, and take all the steps back,

Then start forward again on the first step of that track.

Just imagine

— All the things we can still make happen.