Whereas we thank you for your stewardship

katherine Leonard

With sincere gratitude to Layli Long Soldier
for her work, Whereas, which considers and deeply reflects
on the 2009 U.S. Congressional Resolution of Apology.

We say stewardship, whereas we have no words for inter-

relationship. We have no word for living

in harmony within creation.

And we snort and toss our cans and bulldoze

our stewardship of each other

into boxes to hold children

and sort each other by color and cost.

Until our tsunami of hunger swallows us whole.

Whereas we are sorry

or will be

                        or may never be         

for the dis        continuity

            driving us        drunk on manifest destiny,

                        joyriding

a superhighway.                      Whereas, anyway,

we mean to apologize.            That was all in the past.

Whereas things are clearly different

now     –          witness            the fact

                        that we are saying                   sorry.

Katherine Leonard grew up in the US and Italy. She lived in Massachusetts at the time of John F Kennedy's assassination and as a high school student in rural Texas, experienced segregation and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. She has been a chemist, a geologist and an oncology nurse/nurse practitioner. Her work has been previously published in literary journals, including Sonora Review, Hole in the Head Review, Speckled Trout Review, FERAL, and Tipping the Scales. Her work is upcoming in Stone Canoe, Allium and Northern New England Review.