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Poetry and Earth – Night

April 20, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

 . 
[ poems by Mary Oliver, Scott Owens, Clint Bowman,
Jenny Bates, Michael Hettich ]
 . 
from Little Alleluias
 . 
This is the poem of goodbye.
And this is the poem of don’t know.
 …
My hands touch the lilies
then withdraw;
 …
my hands touch the blue iris
then withdraw;
 …
and I say, not easily but carefully-
the words round in the mouth, crisp on the tongue-
 …
dirt, mud, stars, water-
I know you as if you were myself.
How could I be afraid?
 . 
Mary Oliver
selected by Scott Owens
 . 
Commenting on anything written by Mary Oliver seems presumptuous and superfluous. How could anything I could imagine saying make what she writes clearer? Here, and in poems like, “Wild Geese,” and “The Summer Day,” Oliver seems to reach beyond my consciousness and grab hold of what resides even deeper and then say it in a way that I could never say as clearly, precisely, exactly. “as if you were myself. / How could I be afraid?”
— Scott
 . 
❀
 . 
Night in the Forest
 . 
You hear every twig snap,
every leaf flutter, every
strange unknowable animal sound.
Looking, your eyes widen,
find bits of light to hold onto,
see shadows grow from shadows
separate in slightest breath of wind.
 . 
You smell animal musk,
taste it in the air,
feel the hair on your arms,
the back of your neck, rise
as you’re certain something
comes closer. Every sense
is filled to overflowing.
 . 
And yet, amidst the unease,
the urge to panic,
there is also in moments of stillness
a calm, a sense of peace,
of no obligation, no schedule to attend,
you only ever feel here
in the still, in the quiet, in the dark.
 . 
Scott Owens
 . 
I started this poem more than 20 years ago when I went camping a lot, usually alone. I was teaching middle school at the time, and when I left the house Friday mornings I would throw my backpack, camping pad, sleeping bag, lighter, flashlight, sawback knife, and a change of clothes into the back of my car. And when school let out, I headed to the mountains and hiked at least 3 miles into the woods before setting up “camp.” It could be scary out there alone, but it was also the closest thing to serenity I had ever felt. The duality of the experience is what kept me doing it again and again, so of course I tried to write about it. I was never satisfied with the end of the poem until 2 decades later when I used 3 consecutive prepositional phrases as the conclusion of a poem about burial, and intuitively this old, unfinished poem sprang back into my consciousness because I somehow knew that was how I wanted to conclude this one too. Fortunately, I’m very stubborn about throwing attempted poems away, and although it took me a while to find the last failed draft, I eventually did.
— Scott
 . 
✿
 . 
Unleashed
 . 
Lately, it’s like I can feel myself aging.
I arrive home and immediately
look for my slippers, slip on a sweater,
put my feet up, close my eyes.
I remember once in the last year
of his life I took my old dog Huck
for a walk in the park. After rain.
The soccer fields were flooded, glistening
with sunlight in shallow pools of water,
and the robins had gathered in huge flocks
to take advantage of rain worms coming up
everywhere. I let Huck off the leash
and for a moment memories of youth
flashed in his eyes once again and he ran
all over chasing the birds up first
in one spot and then in another.
He carried on for longer
than I had seen him run in years.
I hope somehow I know
when I am close to death
and I, too, can have
a last moment of memory like that.
Maybe climb a tree to the top,
round the bases at a ball field,
walk out with no destination
in mind, no concept of how far
I might go before turning back.
 . 
Scott Owens
 . 
Time in nature and time with poetry often achieve the same effects for me: renewal, catharsis, perspective, clarity. I tell my students the most important habit in writing, maybe in life, is paying attention. I teach them how to make it a habit: schedule it 7 days in a row; commit to it; follow through. If at the end of those 7 days you’re not consciously noticing more things. Do it another 7 days. Then I give them a few more pointed assignments to help broaden the habit. I tell them ask yourself every day, What am I doing right now? Write down your answer and everything else it makes you think of. I get a never-ending stream of poems beginning with interesting participial phrases. Lastly, I tell them pay attention to the stories you tell people, especially the ones you tell over and over again. If you want to tell the story, especially if you want to continue telling it, then clearly there is something interesting about it. Why haven’t you written it down yet? I usually try to listen to my own lessons, and one story I’ve told over and over is the story of Huck, at 15, chasing the robins. It always felt like such a poignant moment for me, but I only thought to write it down recently when a co-worker told me a story they had already told me before about how they feel “older,” and at the same time I was putting the finishing touches on a manuscript about aging.
— Scott
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Threads
 . 
Sometimes
I want to go back
 . 
to where the deer
don’t run in my presence,
 . 
and the frogs keep singing
as I stomp through the creek.
 . 
Back to where
closets are full
 . 
of shotguns-
locked and loaded,
 . 
and the old gas station
is run by a woman
who calls me baby
and takes the tax
off my bottles.
 . 
Where farmers
offer me cigarettes,
and even though
I don’t smoke,
I entertain the idea
over ramblings
 . 
about local roads
that stitch together
our kin —
 . 
threads so tightly knit,
all the heat stays in.
so those frogs
can’t stop singing,
and the deer have learned —
there’s nowhere to run.
 . 
Clint Bowman
from If Lost (Loblolly Press, Asheville, NC) 2024
selected by Jenny Bates
 . 
I have chosen to send the poem “Threads” by Black Mountain poet Clint Bowman not only because he is my friend but because he embodies in his words the simplest of truths as it can be towards the natural world. There is no teasing or fakery in his poetry and he is as honest as a walk in the woods with all its variance and subtle candor.
My own poem “Artifice Thoughts” is more whimsical but true!
— Jenny
 . 
✾
 . 
Artifice thoughts as I look out the window
see a Deer casually strolling by and I read
it my favorite childhood book
 . 
I think we envy animals of the wild
what do you say?
 . 
living by the dark of night the light
of day
pressing into the earth or winging above
they truly know how it works, my love
distilling every moment of time not by
clock or watch or phone line
but by the sky and trees and hollows
surrounding them, their home
they don’t seize up with rain or snow
an occasional sound is how they drop
in to dreams of warm days, cold nights
when swirling stars come out
you can hear them whispering as they
touch the ground
don’t close the gate, our entry point
only wait till the Moon is full.
 . 
Jenny Bates
 . 
Thank you for this opportunity Bill to help celebrate and educate on Earth Day 2026. – J
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Something Else
 . 
Suppose, one spring, the birds decided
not to fly north, and the animals
sleeping in the woods decided this year
they’d rather not wake, and turned over instead
for another dream.
 . 
Imagine one summer the butterflies decided
to stay in their cocoons, or the caterpillars forgot
to wrap themselves up inside themselves
and simply gorged themselves instead
until their season passed. One day the tide forgot to rise.
This is only one way of speaking for the world.
 . 
Suppose the spiders stopped weaving, mosquitoes
forgot how to suck our blood, bees
decided not to pollinate flowers.
Suppose the sea turtles never returned
to the beaches that bore them, to lay their moon-drawn eggs.
Or suppose for a moment the rivers held still
and the leaping salmon held still in mid-air.
 . 
Imagine fire stopped burning things to ash
although it still burned. It was no longer hot.
Of course that couldn’t happen. So think of something else.
 . 
Michael Hettich
 . 
from The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022; Press 53, Winston-Salem NC (2023)
 . 
“Something Else” was first published in my 2010 book titled Like Happiness, and though sixteen years have passed since then, it seems to me, looking at the poem now, that the concerns that brought me to write the piece are, if anything, more urgent now than they were then. In asking us to imagine non-human animals and rhythms of nature deciding not to participate in the eternal rhythms of life—a kind of ultimate end-world scenario precipitated in response to human-wrought degradation—the poem (I hope) challenges our complacency. The two italicized lines attempt to articulate a perhaps extreme version of the kind of thinking we all do to deny our complicity. And I think the final line also intends a double reading: we can “think of something else” as a form of denial, or we can do so as a way of imagining a different sort of future.
— Michael
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Let us probe the silent places. Let us seek what luck betides us. There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam too. And the Wild is calling, calling – let us go.
— Robert Service, Call of the Wild
 . 
We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest, the butterflies, the song of the birds, if we can’t see the stars at night.
— Thomas Berry
 . 
Thank you for celebrating the month of April with International Earth Day (April 22) and National Poetry Month. And thank you, Readers, who have shared poems that connect us to our planet and each other. We will continue posting EARTH POETRY throughout the month of April – and beyond April as well, of course, since EVERY DAY is EARTH DAY!
 . 
❁
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image: If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
And thank you again and forever, Mike Barnett, for filling the cool deep well of nature quotations which will never ever run dry.
— Bill
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2021-03-23
 . 

Posted in Ecopoetry, Imagery | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Poetry and Earth – Water

April 17, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

 . 
[ poems by Dana Levin, Christina Baumis, Janice F. Booth,
Natalie Canavor, David Winship, Sherry Siddall ]
 . 
Watching the Sea Go
 . 
               Thirty seconds of yellow lichen.
 . 
Thirty seconds of coil and surge,
               fern and froth, thirty seconds
                                of salt, rock, fog, spray.
 . 
                                                                           Clouds
 . 
moving slowly to the left—
 . 
               A door in a rock through which you could see
 . 
                                            __
 . 
another rock,
                                laved by the weedy tide.
 . 
               Like filming breathing—thirty seconds
 . 
of tidal drag, fingering
               the smaller stones
                                down the black beach—what color
 . 
               was that, aquamarine?
Starfish spread
 . 
                                their salmon-colored hands.
 . 
                                            __
 . 
               I stood and I shot them.
 . 
I stood and I watched them
               right after I shot them: thirty seconds of smashed sea
                                while the real sea
 . 
                                thrashed and heaved—
 . 
               They were the most boring movies ever made.
I wanted
 . 
                                to mount them together and press Play.
 . 
                                            __
 . 
               Thirty seconds of waves colliding.
Kelp
 . 
               with its open attitudes, seals
                                riding the swells, curved in a row
 . 
                                just under the water—
 . 
                                                 the sea,
 . 
               over and over.
                                                 Before it’s over.
 . 
Dana Levin
from Banana Palace. Copyright © 2016 by Dana Levin and Copper Canyon Press, http://www.coppercanyonpress.org. At The Poetry Foundation.
selected by Tina Baumis
 . 
❀
 . 
Ms. Levin’s poem evokes sadness each time I read it. Her image of the vast empty ocean is aimed to convey loss with minimal words. The title is perfect as she ebbs and flows leading our thoughts along with hers. Ms. Levin’s poem brings the encroaching shadow while I reflected on nature’s generous glow.
  — Tina
 . 
IMG_3599
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
Lake Freeman
 . 
Curled against the nestling seat curve,
strands of hair blowing like dandelion seeds.
Dipping fingers in clear lake water
impermanent patterns sparkle,
 . 
break and dance in the sun’s bountiful balm.
Crisp water loosens pent up tension
eases into soothing meandering thoughts
as those densities are flung turbulently behind
 . 
in the boat’s churning frothy wake.
I am young, once again.
 . 
Tina Baumis
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
Blue Spaces Elegy     *
 . 
Anchored by a wide, lazy creek, the street I live on
climbs to a four-square farmhouse on the bluff
with its dilapidated carriage stable standing sentry;
the old barn collapsed years ago.
The land along our street— clay now,
once pristine blue space.
 . 
Long ago, the farmer grew corn and tobacco on this land.
A lane, rutted and raw descended from barn
 to creek through blue space.
The plow, farmhands, and wagons piled with the harvests
moved down to the creek and up the lane,
and the farmer’s family prospered.
 . 
Skiffs plied the creek and brought their catch
to the farmer’s dock at the end of the lane.
The creek’s rich stock of Bay crabs and fish
surpassed the land’s bounty.
And the lane morphed into a gravel road
where rusty pickups ladened with
bushels of crabs and shellfish came and went.
And the farmer’s family prospered.
 . 
When the depleted land failed,
the farmer sold it as lots to watermen
and small clapboard cottages popped up beside the creek.
But the watermen’s catch dwindled;
and town folks bought the plots, tore down the cottages
and built sturdy ranchers and split-levels with driveways.
Curbs were added, and the gravel road was paved,
burying three small tributaries beneath the street,
cutting off the spring water that fed the old creek.
When the rains came, soil and lawn fertilizer
washed down the paved street, over the
buried springs, into the tired creek,
but the farmer’s family prospered.
 . 
The old farmhouse watched;
the carriage stable and barn emptied.
The farmer and the farmer’s wife died.
The neighborhood grew.
Builders came and went.
People prospered,
homes expanded.
The creek bed clogged with silt and runoff.
The farm was gone, the watermen were gone
from the now brown and turgid creek,
 . 
and the farmer’s family lives
somewhere else.
 . 
Janice F. Booth
*    Blue spaces are environments with prominent water features known to improve our well-being, similar to “green spaces.”
 . 
✾
 . 
Thank you, Bill, for this opportunity to let my work speak, in my own small way, of the earth’s suffering. Having lived on my creek-side street for over 40 years, I have watched changes both micro and macro in the tiny part of the planet I inhabit.  I was moved to write this poem as our creek turned brown and thick with algae from the winter run-off and spring rains. 
— Janice
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
City Trees
 . 
Back then it was safe for a 5-year old
to elevator down to the street and jump rope
or play potsy with other kids on the block,
hopping between chalked boxes on the sidewalk.
No mothers hovering to watch.
A safe world if not a pretty one,
hundreds of such blocks with
precisely aligned 6-story buildings:
a bleak ocean of brick in shades of muddy brown.
 . 
But East 177th Street harbored something alien.
Lining the street for exactly one block,
Grand Concourse to Morris Avenue,
a row of  majestic, giant trees endured.
Huge dark trunks rising way past the flat rooftops,
branches arcing over the six stories.
Like no other street I’d seen.
 . 
I never knew why they grew in such unwelcoming habitat.
Nor what kind of trees they were,
the shape of their leaves, their color in autumn.
In truth my young self hardly noticed the trees.
Yet these icons of nature hovered over my childhood.
Made my drab street unique and colorful,
gave me something to look up to-literally.
 . 
Hinted at vistas way beyond my limited view.
I did not understand those trees, but loved them.
 . 
Natalie Canavor
from The Song in the Room
 . 
✾
 . 
Growing up in a New York City neighborhood gave me little early exposure to nature beyond trips to a few parks and an occasional picnic to the Westchester “countryside.” Animal life meant squirrels. Pigeons and sparrows were the birds we knew. And if anything green graced the immediate environment, I can’t recall it. Except for the trees. I had a chance to revisit the Bronx recently and found that my trees had vanished from the street. I feel sorry for the new crops of kids living on this not-so-special-anymore city block.
— Natalie
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
Watershed Community
 . 
We live in a Watershed Community.
Water here since the dawn of time
will be here after the sunset of time
same water, going round and round
circulating by our solar pump engine
a closed cycle circling our Earth
coursing through our hills
our bodies, our communities
connecting through our water
around us, in the air, in the ground
flowing in the streams, rising in the air
falling in the rain
 . 
over and over.
 . 
Water is our source, our soul
keeping us growing by its flowing
through our watershed
sustaining us, nourishing us, enlivening us.
We are baptized into life on Earth
through this ancient water
tumbling through these hills
dripping through our watershed
down the mountains to the sea
nurturing our fellow life forms
eroding surfaces, changing form
shaping our lives.
 . 
Do for others downstream
as you would have
others upstream
do for you.
 . 
David Winship
Bristol, Tennessee
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
October Tide
 . 
A nor’easter dabbles off the coast
raising the water to whiteness,
the wind to forgetting itself
in gusts and lurches.
 . 
Back canals are sober enough
for cormorants to lounge
wings stretched in worship
as deep cicadas drone in the cedars.
 . 
The tide escapes as it always does
twice a day, responding to the
slippery Moon, pulling the blood
in flood time, neaps and springs.
 . 
Gravities align, Sun and Moon
dance out of habit,
the perfect mathematics
just enough to keep us here.
 . 
Sherry Siddall
 . 
✾
 . 
October Tide appears in my first full length book, Transformed and Singing, recently published by Main Street Rag.  If you stop to think about the almost impossible coming together of life on our planet, you have to sit down and take a breath. This idea occupies a lot of my time as a poet, and in Transformed and Singing (hint: cicadas abound). 
— Sherry Siddall
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness.
— Adeline Knapp
A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.
— Rachel Carson
 . 
Thank you for celebrating the month of April with International Earth Day (April 22) and National Poetry Month. Readers have selected poems that connect us to our planet and each other. If you have a poem that has rooted you to the earth and spread your branches into bright sky, please share! It can be a poem by your favorite writer, living or dead, a poem of your own, or both. We will continue sharing Earth poems as long as you send them.
 . 
Send a your poem(s) in the body of the email or as .DOC or .RTF to:
ecopoetry@griffinpoetry.com 
 . 
Please include your comments or reaction to the poem. And publication acknowledgments if previously published.
 . 
Feel free to invite others to send their favorite Earth Day poems. Please refer them to this link for instructions: EARTH DAY EVERY DAY. Perhaps some day we will be able to say we live in the Age of Connection.
 . 
❁
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image: If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
— Bill
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
2017-02-11 Doughton Park Tree
 . 

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Poetry and Earth – Prayer

April 15, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

 . 
[ poems by Gary Snyder, Diana Dinverno, Terry Bornhorst Blackhawk, 
Gina M. Streaty, Elizabeth H. Lara, Fred Chappell ]
 . 
Prayer For The Great Family
 . 
Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—
  and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet
      in our minds so be it
 . 
Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light-changing leaf
  and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind
  and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain
      in our minds so be it
 . 
Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent
  Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
  clear spirit breeze
      in our minds so be it
 . 
Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
  freedoms, and ways, who share with us their milk;
  self-complete, brave, and aware
      in our minds so be it
 . 
Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
  holding or releasing; streaming through all
  our bodies salty seas
      in our minds so be it
 . 
Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
  trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
  bears and snakes sleep—he who wakes us—
      in our minds so be it
 . 
Gratitude to the Great Sky
  who holds billions of stars—and goes yet beyond that—
  beyond all powers, and thoughts
  and yet is within us—
  Grandfather Space.
  The Mind is his Wife.
 . 
      so be it.
 . 
Gary Snyder (after a Mohawk prayer)
from EARTH PRAYERS, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon
selected by Bill Griffin
 . 
✾
 . 
I am excited to see so many wood anemone blooming this April. A galaxy where I noticed only a few lonely stars last year. Joyful in the discovery, excited to share – let those feelings speak their name, Gratitude. And let gratitude grow into the love that inspires to me to hold all living things safe and sacred, this great family of life with which I share our planet.
— Bill
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
We Visit the Tomales Point Trailhead 
as Congress Continues to Threaten the Sale of Federal Land 
 . 
My daughters and I park beneath a canopy of old trees,
a windbreak when this land was a working dairy ranch.
Beyond the once-whitewashed barn, bunkhouses,
and sheds, the trail leads us onto sand
winding through lemon-hued lupines
so tall they sway above our heads.
 . 
We ooh and aah at the vast exuberance—
California poppies, thistles with lush purple fringe,
and, after a gentle climb, we look west,
 catch sight
of the Pacific’s immense blue, its rippled light,
a spectacular cinematic sky. To the east,
gold and green meadows rise.
 . 
We walk across the peninsula’s clavicle,
its tender ridge dips into hollows,
monarchs flutter, tend to blooms.
 . 
I follow the lift of my girl’s arm
pointing to the summer-saturated hills.
Grazing tule elk, once thought extinct,
somehow still here, keep their distance,
raise their massive heads.
 . 
A Cooper’s Hawk circles the grassland.
Far below, birds we can’t identify glide
in formation just beyond the ocean’s reach.
Trills and whistles fill the scented air—
faintly honeysuckle, intoxicating, wild.
 . 
My younger daughter notices tiny orange petals—
scarlet pimpernel clings to the path’s edge, firmly rooted,
part of the shoreline’s crown.
 . 
As the land bends, we pause
high above a cove, a stretch of surf-ruffled beach
dotted with rock—scan for sea-lions, listen
for their barks before we move on—
the bluff too fragile to descend.
 . 
Diana Dinverno
 . 

[photo by Diana Dinverno]

 . 
✿
 . 
In the Spring of 2025, my daughters and I visited the Point Reyes National Shoreline and walked the Tomales Point Trail, owned and managed on our behalf by the U.S. government. It is one of the most wondrous and beauty-filled places I’ve seen. Leading up to the visit, we’d heard reports of proposals in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” to sell 2-3 million acres of public lands—and authorize the sale of many more. It was heartbreaking to think this public place, available to anyone to explore, could be sold to the highest private bidder for its stunning ocean views. Due to immense public opposition, the provisions were removed from the bill, but in the face of continued pressure by some members of Congress and our current Administration’s quiet dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service, our National Parks, with their still-wild places, remain at risk. 
 . 
Although I’ve spent most of my life in the Midwest, I currently live in Texas, trying to learn the names of trees, flowers, and birds. 
— Diana
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
Calling the Owl
Audubon Christmas Bird Count, 
Oakland County, MI, 1995
 . 
This time the owl eludes us
where we stand, trying to call him in
with his own voice
 . 
which we’ve captured on tape
to release to the predawn woods.
Press a button. The air flutters,
rushing from our black box
 . 
what is hidden from us—
 . 
wing-like quaverings—
 . 
soft bursts of song.
If light mutes him, shadows offer hope,
and we listen so intently into them
the snowy meadow
suddenly seems wider, brighter
with news from beyond its perimeter.
Don’t lift, I almost pray,
 . 
don’t disappear.
Day will break soon enough.
Let us hear your faint vibrato and absorb
what is invisible, wild and nearly gone.
Mist thickens the silence, promises
patience, echo, sound not sight.
I will let that fluty tremolo find,
fill me, give voice
to emptiness. I hold my breath to sustain
the long vowel of night.
 . 
Terry Bohnhorst Blackhawk
first appeared in Yankee (Jean Burden, editor); collected in body & field (Michigan State U. Press, 1999) and the chapbook of bird poems,  The Whisk & Whir of Wings (Ridegway Press, 2015). Margaret Gibson included it in Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis (Grayson Books, 2021), an anthology she produced as CT Poet Laureate.
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✿
 . 
This is one of my earlier poems, written from my love of birds and birding — a love that Jan Booth introduced to me early in our friendship which goes back over 55 years (!) to our days as first-year teachers in Detroit.
— Terry
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
M. Wright Fishing at Lake Jordan
(3/27/05)
 . 
I sit, wait,
watch him
cast his long line—
orange cork breaks water,
shatters oak trees. Mirror images
shift, shimmy, merge in symmetrical circles
in water, murky gray
like the slate-blue sky that slumps to meet it.
 . 
A red-tailed hawk sprawls on evening air,
hovers overhead, its wings slice
fast-approaching night.
A crappie, jerked to the surface,
fights against the line,
treads gelatinous green moss
with its silver head
before breaking free
I pray like Jonah.
Pray for two fish to feed the multitude.
 . 
To the evensong of crickets,
twilight weeps a misty rain
for me embraced by cold
as the man in gray dungarees
becomes his own shadow,
a tree like willow oaks coddling him,
head lowered, shoulders
descending with darkness.
 . 
As the pale green bucket
rings out emptiness,
minnows are turned loose.
A spring moon clings to sky,
reels me into myself…
 . 
Gina M. Streaty
 . 
✾
 . 
I drafted this poem several years ago during a fishing outing with a friend. He tried to catch fish; I sat at a picnic table penning poems for hours. Nature always quickens my spirit. I am more connected to the natural world than I am people. Truth. Nature with its vibrant colors, textures, scents, sounds/music, secrets, mysteries, motion, moods, and magic is spectacular. It captivates me. My bucket list lengthens with each new nature screensaver on my computer. We are blessed to have earth’s infinite exquisiteness and the innumerable ways nature inspires, consoles, protects, heals, sustains, and forgives us. How can God not be the creator? Earth is our Eden, a spectacular, invaluable gift to us. We certainly don’t deserve it, but earth deserves our protection, our love, and bare minimum, our respect.
 . 
My poet friend Lenard D. Moore told me about your call for Earth Day themed poems. He and I share an intense love for the natural world and poetry.
— Gina
 . 
 , 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
Part-Way Down the Mountain Path
 . 
Late morning, the air clings
despite the sheltering trees.
High-stepping over weeds
and scattered gravel, we come to
a hollow rotting log, so long fallen
the soil has packed itself
against one side, a sort of ledge,
and there, a hen with three chicks.
Mama hen hops onto the ledge,
pirouettes slowly on scaly yellow
legs to watch her chicks scramble
and bumble and hop and
slide back and get up again.
She clucks and struts, goes
back around to the low side
of the log, hops over once more,
waits while her chicks
try out the game. We watch
for a long time – over and over
she jumps / waits / circles back –
until chickafterchickafterchick
they follow her over that log.
 . 
Elizabeth H. Lara
Silver Springs, Maryland
 . 
✿
 . 
I wrote this very plain and simple poem while at our farm in the mountains of San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.
— Liz
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
 . 
A Prayer for the Mountains
 . 
Let these peaks have happened
 . 
The hawk-haunted knobs and hollers,
The blind coves dense as meditation,
The white rock-face, the laurel hells,
The terraced pasture ridge
With its broom sedge combed back by wind:
Let these have taken place, let them be place.
 . 
And where Harmon Fork piles unrushing
Against its tabled stones, let the gray trout
Idle below, its dim plectrum a shadow
That marks the stone’s clear shadow.
 . 
In the slow glade where sunlight comes through
In circlets and moves from leaf to fallen leaf
Like a tribe of shining bees,
Let the milk-flecked fawn lie unseen, unseing.
 . 
Let me lie there too
And share the sleep
Of the cool ground’s mildest children.
 . 
Fred Chappell
from Spring Garden, © 1995 by Fred Chappell, Lousiana State University Press.
selected by Bill Griffin
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
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The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
– Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
 . 
Thank you for celebrating the month of April with International Earth Day (April 22) and National Poetry Month. Readers have selected poems that connect us to our planet and each other. If you have a poem that has rooted you to the earth and spread your branches into bright sky, please share! It can be a poem by your favorite writer, living or dead, a poem of your own, or both. We will continue sharing Earth poems as long as you send them.
 . 
Send a your poem(s) in the body of the email or as .DOC or .RTF to:
ecopoetry@griffinpoetry.com 
 . 
Please include your comments or reaction to the poem. And publication acknowledgments if previously published.
 . 
Feel free to invite others to send their favorite Earth Day poems. Please refer them to this link for instructions: EARTH DAY EVERY DAY. Perhaps some day we will be able to say we live in the Age of Connection.
 . 
❁
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image: If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
— Bill
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
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2020-09-08b Doughton Park Tree
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