Terimarie Degree

CONTACT:
Email: terimariedegree37@gmail.com,
Website: https://www.facebook.com/WriterTerimarieDegree/

BIO:
Terimarie Degree grew up with both parents serving in the US Navy. This afforded the opportunity to live everywhere from California to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Her work includes reflections on faith, family, relationships, coming of age in the 1980s, the beauty found in the natural world and the role people have to care for it and one another. Terimarie has a number of poems published online as well as in print with more forthcoming: Permeable to the Year (2017), The Third Eye (2017), Where I Want to Live (2018), Secret Words Volume 4 (2019), On Environment (2019), Reflections (2020), Earth E-book (2020), Through This Door (2020), Femme Literarti: Mixtape (2021) and ON THE FRONT LINES//behind the lines (2021).

Poetry

Hope United

Inspired by Reynaldo Hernandez’s “Mural of Peace”

Mother eagle keeps a watchful eye
as she glides over the city
she cries out
and instead of calling the unknown stranger tired or poor
instead of naming a person a temporary circumstance
she welcomes those who are done traveling
calling them by the names written on their hearts
artisans
creatives
seeking peace
and place
belonging

with wings spread wide
she invites all
to add their light to an ever growing tapestry
beauty woven together by folks from various lands
speaking different tongues
yet able to join in and sing the same song

in lockstep marching to the beat of the talking drums
stopping to listen to brother dove’s oration
etching his words down on bark and stone
so the aging can reflect and the young can learn
art is the universal language
it is the fabric that binds our city’s past to its present
and it will carry us forward in an esperanza unida