As It Happens

As it happens, reeling
from losses of strangers,        
Joan Didion always slouched.
She made it glamorous,
articulate, and suave.

As it happens, Desmond Tutu.
Said “You don’t choose your family.
They are God’s gift to you”.
He sat beside the Dalai Lama,
whispered. They are the largest
Family.

“We should preserve every scrap
of biodiversity as priceless while we learn
to use it and come to understand
what it means to humanity.”
As it happens, EO Wilson was able
to understand the communication
between ants. He never invited me
to call him Ed, but I secretly did.

About the Poem

We lost three people who made a difference to me, and to so many others: Joan Didion, Desmond Tutu, E.O. Wilson all within the space of a week.

About the Author

Lynne Kemen lives in Upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than A Handful, was published in 2020. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in La Presa, Silver Birch Press, The Ravens Perch, Fresh Words Magazine, Blue Mountain Review, and the anthology What We See on Our Journeys. A Runner-Up for The Ekphrastic Journal’s competition of Women Artists, she is an Editor for The Blue Mountain Review and The Southern Collective, both in Atlanta, Georgia. She is on the Board of Bright Hill Press in Treadwell, New York.