<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">Election<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for the rainbow.<br class="">
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I voted for the cry of a loon.<br class="">
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I voted for my grandfather’s bones<br class="">
that feed beetles now.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for a singing brook that sparkles<br class="">
under a North Dakota bean field.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for salty air through which the whimbrel flies<br class="">
South along the shores of two continents.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for melting snow that returns to the wellspring<br class="">
of darkness, where the sky is born from the earth.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for daemonic mushrooms in the loam,<br class="">
and the old democracy of worms.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for the wordless treaty that cannot be broken<br class="">
by white men or brown, because it is made of star semen,<br class="">
thistle sap, hieroglyphs of the weevil in prairie oak.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for the local, the small, the brim<br class="">
that does not spill over, the abolition of waste,<br class="">
the luxury of enough.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for the commonwealth of the ancient forest,<br class="">
a larva for every beak, a wing-tinted flower<br class="">
for every moth’s disguise, a well-fed mammal’s corpse<br class="">
for every colony of maggots.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for open borders between death and birth.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted on the ballot of a fallen leaf of sycamore<br class="">
that cannot be erased, for it becomes the dust and rain,<br class="">
and then a tree again.<br class="">
I voted for more fallow time to cultivate wild flowers,<br class="">
more recess in schools to cultivate play,<br class="">
more leisure, tax free, more space between days.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted to increase the profit of evening silence<br class="">
and the price of a thrush song.<br class="">
<br class="">
I voted for ten million stars in your next inhalation.</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(26, 26, 26); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><br class="">
- Alfred K. LaMotte</div></div></body></html>