Descent Into the Sky

For one full year, I drove in my camper van across the United States after the covid lockdowns. These are poems celebrating and pondering the natural wonders as well as the human emotional complexities I came across. My intention was to be a bridge at a time of high intolerance and division. My naivete met with cold plunges into the conscious and unconsciousness pervasive today. The beauty and the beast of the American landscape in 2022-2023 as seen from my eyes are both enamoring and perplexing. As a woman of color traveling alone, I experienced first hand how the world had changed radically. As I left the west coast and drove deeper into the Deep South, I met the unprocessed underbelly of the American collective. I shared many stories of average Americans who struggled with isolation and sought more connection to teaching themselves that people are safe again. Here, I chose to focus on the natural beauty in the poems without being a Pollyanna to where we need to grow as a nation. The laboring of the birthing is evident in my own personal struggles with connection and disconnection, trust and danger, fragmentation and wholeness. I invite you to journey with me in this collection of poems and photographs.