Eben E. B. Bein (they)

@ebenbein.bsky.social

299 Followers 155 Following

Climate Justice Educator. Facilitator. Multi-disciplinary artist. Living, organizing, creating, and interbeing on Massachusett Land.

“Poetry makes nothing happen”—an Auden quote out of context, with a grain of truth. We must do more than art right now. We must return again and again to our connections with people who persist in the face of being starved, bombed, shot, trapped, occupied. We must tend these connections in the streets, in our homes, in difficult conversations with decision-makers, and in our own hearts.

And art also has its place in this moment. Last fall, in a completely packed and sweaty Harvard Bookstore, the words of Mosab Abu Tohah reopened my heart. He and many other Palestinian writers can help us orient to and confront our reality. Let’s be in conversation with them.

It’s the day after summer solstice. In my new neighborhood, hundreds of bands are playing music on their porches. And I am just not able to be here.

Zoomed in picture of a stag beetle's head with an excerpt from the poem Common Descent "This is an insect with zest, with heft enough to take down others of his kind... true mouthparts tucked discretely beneath the massive grapplers—I, too, hide my real mouth behind something bigger."