I’ve been compelled to work on this piece for some time, since beginning to write about my volunteer work with Occupy Medical Eugene, a free mobile health care clinic that emphasizes the right for everyone to have access to respectful, compassionate and competent health care. 

I wrote a poem first, in a poetry workshop conducted by my friend and mentor, Kelly Eastlund. This art piece evolved out of that writing experience.

Here is the poem that is inspiring my visual piece:

Weeping, Swept by Fury

It is a cry, welling up from my heart, bubbling up, unbidden.

My heart is just so full that my ribs are cracking open, breaking through my chest. I can hear the snap. 

I’m bleeding out, a fierce tidal wave of indignation, as I walk the city streets.

I am so distraught, bearing witness to these fellow beings on the street, houseless, starving for acknowledgement as well as nutrition, rejected and displaced.

My cry has wording now. “Injustice. Suffering. Assault in all its forms.”

I am weeping, and I cannot stem the tide. Any one of us could have been born to this set of circumstances. 

This cry gives rise to a question. “Why do so few see their plight?” Most choose to see through them, around them, beyond them. 

We were born with the tools to create a solution: head, heart, hands.

This is my vow, to never cease the cry, and to use my head, my heart, my hands, to build and plant, so as to ease the suffering.