Terry Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer,” a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice.
Published February 18, 2017 by Whitefish Review, Issue #20
Erosion
By Terry Tempest Williams
—November 9, 2016
It is morning. I am mourning.
And the river is before me.
I am a writer without words who is struggling to find them.
I am holding the balm of beauty, this river, this desert, so vulnerable,
all of us.
I am trying to shape my despair into some form of action, but for
now, I am standing on the cold edge of grief.
We are staring at a belligerent rejection of change by our fellow
Americans who believe they have voted for change.
The seismic shock of a new political landscape is settling.
For now, I do not feel like unity is what is called for.
Resistance is our courage.
Love will become us.
The land holds us still.
Let us pause and listen and gather our strength with grace and move
forward like water in all its manifestation: flat water, white water,
rapids and eddies, and flood this country with an integrity of purpose
and patience and persistence capable of cracking stone.
I am a writer without words who continues to believe in the vitality of
the struggle.
Let us hold each other close
and be kind.
Let us gather together and break bread.
Let us trust that what is required of us next will become clear in time.
What has been hidden is now exposed.
This river, this mourning, this moment—may we be brave enough to
feel it deeply.