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Writer's pictureIPM Team
Sep 5, 20221 min read

The Peace of Wild Things: Embracing the Earth to Tell Your Story | Cathey Capers


A photo of a mother duck and three ducklings swimming together in a very large body of water. The sky is a peachy color and mixes in the water with no clear horizon. There is a poem by Cathey Capers titled "The Peace of Wild Things: Embracing the Earth to Tell Your Story" that reads: "It was 'The Peace of Wild Things'/that got me through/those miles of interstate/lined on both sides with identical big-box stores/heading to the Texas coast./I repeated it over and over again/until it fell, the first of many,/into my treasure of poems/learned by heart.//And when your mother died/ it was the image of/mother duck with her ducklings/that she had worried over/on the pond in her trailer park,/that sparked the poem you penned/that gathered your siblings and children/in their grief.//And when my father died/it was the poem of/a canyon in fall I would descend,/A roiling river I would ride/before ascending to the light of spring,/that helped my family regain our footing,//And when our son struggled/I wrote of brave green winter rye/to save my soul.//So tell me, how will we survive/should we destroy the very/lives and landscaped/that come over and over again/to our rescue?"

If a line or phrase resonates with you,

we invite you to use it as a starting point to create your own poem.

We welcome you to share your poem with the IPM community here.


 

Since her early experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer, Cathey Capers has been drawn to opportunities to empower others with skills and resources that are sorely needed in communities.


Cathey was thrilled when members of Austin Clubhouse (a non-profit, member-based organization made up of people living with mental health challenges) stepped up to become Peer Facilitators of Poetry as a Tool for Wellness.

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