Burn Lake

Stretch your mind to think about what the earth looked like before people lived in it. What did the earth beneath your bed look like? What wildness grew, and who roamed through it before people claimed to own it, when everything belonged to everyone?

Make a list of what belongs to you, but not everyone. This could include your pillow, your pet bird, the country you live in, and so on. Then, make a list of what doesn’t belong to you. Now, make a list of what belongs to everyone. Think: What would it be like if more of the earth belonged to everyone?

Read Carrie Fountain’s Burn Lake, which tells the story of a bulldozer that tried to make a highway and instead made a lake for the public. A poem can be a way of looking at the world in a new way, or discovering a story or a lesson in an everyday moment. Now think: How can a bulldozer and a lake can be beautiful and poetic?

Fill a glass with cold water, something the earth created for all of us, but that only some own. Take a sip. As you drink your water, write the story of what the earth would look like if it were filled to the brim, like a lake, with things that belonged to all of us.