“Don’t soften the edges” was written by former Sierra Club BC Campaigns Director Caitlyn Vernon in 2009. The poem was written shortly after the Copenhagen climate summit (COP15), which failed to deliver the hoped-for breakthrough in global commitment to climate action. At the time, Caitlyn was thinking about false hopes and wondering if the promise of new technology was keeping us from asking the harder questions about why we were facing such a climate crisis and what broader, more systemic changes are needed both to prevent catastrophic climate change and to support the transition to a more just, ecologically abundant society where we respect the earth and we respect one another.

I.

The big picture tilts, it’s too heavy,
too hard to hold in our hands, in our hearts.
It slips off the wall,
shatters into pieces on the floor.

II.

In the big picture, it’s not just climate change.
It’s how we treat one another,
our sense of superiority and entitlement,
our disconnect from each other and from the earth.

In the big picture, it’s not just climate change.
Droughts caused by water mismanagement and overuse,
food shortages the legacy of industrial agriculture,
people die so shareholders can make a profit,
fish are disappearing because we ate them.

In the big picture, climate change makes things worse,
but reducing GHG’s won’t solve everything.

In the big picture, is capitalism.
It is profits over people, some people over other people,
and all people over the environment.
It is the individual at the expense of the collective,
it is all of us.

In the big picture, we can dare to dream of a future both equitable and sustainable.
Where we make decisions based on community and justice, not profit,
within an economy that respects ecological limits.

III.

But the big picture tilts, it’s too heavy,
too hard to hold in our hands, in our hearts.
It slips off the wall,
shatters into pieces on the floor.

IV.

The pieces are like shards of stained glass,
catching the light and holding our attention.
Renewable energy, the promise of new technologies,
food in/security,
water shortages, species extinctions,
violence against women, languages being lost,
refugee rights, pipelines,
you name it the piece is there, glittering in the light.

The allure, the necessity to act, is palpable.
We each grab a piece and run around with it,
urgently trying to fix it, somehow.
Mine is the most important – no, mine is! – we argue,
waste time, forget about the big picture, distracted.

The shards have sharp edges, they hurt our hands.
We try to bandage them up, soften the edges,
find solutions.

Focusing on each shard alone,
gives people hope, gives people
something that isn’t so hard to hold on to.

But, all too often, softening the edges of one
can damage the others,
and distract from the task at hand.
We run around urgently, but where are we trying to get to?

V.

The big picture, is the task at hand.
To piece the shards together into a new image
that reflects the light and our collective dreams.
Don’t soften the edges.
We need to see them and feel them,
to fit the pieces together
and re/design a future based in real solutions.

A vision for the future
that exposes root causes and heals oppressions,
that is grounded in love and compassion and justice,
with an understanding that we are ecological beings,
and a desire to treat the world and each other with respect and humility.

Re/designing the big picture
requires us to face our fears with open hearts,
be open to putting the pieces together in unexpected ways,
and be willing to cut our hands in the process.

With the strength of community, we can hold up our re/designed big picture,
to inspire a movement.

Featured image by Andrew S. Wright.