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Poetry and Earth – Clay

April 24, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

 . 
[ poems by Robert Hass, Debra Kaufman, Hilda Downer, 
Richard Wilbur, Paul Karnowski ]
 . 
The Image
 . 
The child brought blue clay from the creek
and the woman made two figures: a lady and a deer.
At that season deer came down from the mountain
and fed quietly in the redwood canyons.
The woman and the child regarded the figure of the lady,
the crude roundnesses, the grace, the coloring like shadow.
They were not sure where she came from,
except the child’s fetching and the woman’s hands
and the lead-blue clay of the creek
where the deer sometimes showed themselves at sundown.
 . 
Robert Hass
selected by Debra Kaufman
 . 
I love how this poem speaks to the creative spirit and how the basic elements of the earth inspire and sustain us. There is here a delicate, a reverent, interdependence. Had the creek and earth not made the clay, had the child not brought the clay to the woman, had the deer not visited the creek, had the poet not observed the wonder of it all, the spark that inspired the poet would not exist, and we would not have this poem. I admire the brevity and apparent simplicity of the poem, knowing that the poem, like the clay, had been worked over so that every line (as every curve of the figure) is a work of art. A gift. A wonder.
— Debra
 . 
❀
 . 
Off-White
 . 
This Sunday the sky is an eerie
off-white, as if dawn began rising,
then stood still, reluctant to let
the day begin. And no wonder.
I read of collapsing buildings,
 .      . 
people scurrying for shelter,
burning oil fields, smoke and ash
roiling toward heaven. But heaven
refuses our cruelty:
The clouds do not budge.
 . 
I believe, we used to recite,
in the Holy Spirit, and although I could
only picture it as a tattered cloud,
I did believe, as easily as I believed
in God, in America, hand over heart.
 . 
To believe made my small heart soar.
I’d skip home singing This Little Light of Mine.
I had a crush on Jesus, with his
soft brown eyes, who said, Be ye kind
and Suffer the children to come unto me.
 . 
The clouds begin to shred. Any prayer
I might offer dissolves on my tongue.
My body says time to move.
Today, the second day of spring,
will be uncommonly hot.
 . 
Debra Kaufman
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
— Drill, Baby, Drill
 . 
Drill because the rich get richer
and the rest get drilled.
 . 
Drill us in your own image
a colander that can’t hold water,
farms caving in drained sink holes beneath.
Drill until amalgams turn our teeth grey,
our bones fracked and fractured.
 . 
Drill it in
that billionaires are a superior race
because we still don’t get it.
Drill our skulls into frontal lobotomies,
milling our brains with the inane premise
that veterans don’t deserve healthcare
and the elderly don’t deserve
funds they worked for.
 . 
We know there are more than the two genders
of white male and Stepford wife.
 . 
Drill it into normalcy—
the military unleashed on its own people,
the masked orange taco gestapo
as they go from field to field,
door to door.
 . 
Then, drill some more.
Put us on mute—
multimedia censorship.
Undermine libraries and public schools.
We already knew history repeats itself—
on two sides of the penny bitcoin.
The indigenous, forbidden to speak their language,
kept their power alive behind closed doors.
The enslaved, not allowed to read or write,
followed the signs sewn into quilt patterns.
Monarchs and oligarchs,
books burning, bullets drilling
in revolution, civil war, world war—
we will find another way, a better way.
Erase history if you can.
Erase the mentally ill, the homeless,
the poor, the disabled, the elderly,
those on a spectrum,
those bona fide with a genius IQ,
the artists, the writers, musicians
except for an American band
to play for your disgusting dance
like that of a tick before
jumping on its prey.
Oh, what a day
for supporters who hate melatonin
more than felons and pedophiles!
 . 
DOGE data drilling might locate
and make us disappear,
but memory only fosters our courage.
We will remember.
We will not be remembered for our fear.
What more will you be remembered for?
 . 
Drill until you hit rock bottom,
blaming Canada for Fentanyl.
Drill until you come out in China.
Drill until you try to buy
a Nobel Peace Prize
by trading Alaska to Russia
for an interim cease fire
during your term.
Drill and chisel
a moonscape across Earth
to better view your golf courses
and Gaza Resort
safely from your starship
in outer space,
while we get grilled.
 . 
Your fake resuscitation
with a syringe of adrenaline
drilled into the heart of Appalachia.
X marks the rot
where oil and coal
are still dead.
 . 
Drill until the bowels of Appalachia erode
creeks and rivers with toxic sludge.
Deforest the temperate rain forest
by way of tropical hurricane from climate change.
 . 
We already learned from coal mine strikes
and strategic planning at Highlander
how to organize—
protest songs on standby,
“Which side are you on?”
When you start deporting our people,
“We shall not be moved.”
 . 
Spill out Bibles that spell out
the commandments you break,
that the meek shall inherit the Earth.
Go ahead. Drill, Baby, drill.
We see clearly still—
through each hole
drilled long ago into these lands
and through Christ’s hands.
 . 
Those first four years
were just a drill.
 . 
This is not a Drill.
I repeat. This is not a Drill:
 . 
children under school desks,
hands covering heads.
Hands off what’s in and out of their heads!
From redwood forests to blue ridge mountains,
children too hungry to learn,
hands off Head Start,
14-year-old girls,
and countless young women.
You can no longer drill.
 . 
Hilda Downer, High Country Poet Laureate
 . 
Joseph Bathanti passed your call onto me as he knows I am Appalachian through and through. I live about 50 miles from where I grew up beside the oldest mica mines in the world. Mitchell County is mineral laden, and now threatened by AI’s demand. When I wrote this poem, I was only thinking about the greed behind the use of fossil fuels, decimating the environment, and denying global warming. Now, the demon is sniffing at the windows of my home. Thank you for considering this highly political poem I read at the first Hands Off Rally in my town of Boone, NC. However, I am sure you might be expecting something more like the second poem I am sending you, Mother Tree.
— Hilda
 . 
✾
 . 
Mother Tree
The way the Mother Tree cares for the forest
makes me ashamed of selfish humans.
The tall Mother Tree can harvest more sun
though holes leak light from her leaf-knit shawl
to showcase a pink lady’s-slipper here
or pat a moss draped root there.
Through phototropism and photosynthesis,
she toils harder than the rest
to produce excess carbon and sugar
for sharing not only with her saplings
but also with other species,
both deciduous and conifer.
She can recognize her own kin
but serves the whole community.
Her roots spread far, symbiotic with fungi
that network with other trees.
If one is sick, she sends healing nutrients.
If one is in danger, she warns them all.
Loggers that cut the big trees
allow frail ones to grow,
leaving the forest to pine
without diversity.
Think of the old growth forest
where the Mother Tree lay dying.
Think of the roads cut through.
Just one house is built,
and gone is the sharp, dark smell of black walnut.
Gone is the wizened Carolina hemlock, twisted at its base.
Think of the trees felled,
replaced by utility poles
for communication far inferior
to the Mother Tree’s instinctive telepathy.
I think of my own mother, gone now,
her mind gone long before.
What traditions still bind us?
After my grandmother passed,
aunts, uncles, and cousins no longer met in Bandana
for a fried chicken dinner after church
or made an apple stack cake for the Buchanan reunion
after the Decoration at Silver Chapel Church.
We all grew up playing house under the umbrella shade of laurel,
disclosing angry crawfish under creek rocks,
and plummeting from grapevine swings.
How do we recognize our kinship
or ourselves
if not in the chapel of the woods?
The entrance hugs us
with the wide-open arms of orange azalea.
Our traditions rest upon a log pew
cushioned with the clean scent of moss and musky mushrooms,
centered by autumn’s kaleidoscope;
flanked by crepuscular rays
filtered by the Mother Tree.
 . 
Hilda Downer, High Country Poet Laureate
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
A Wood
 . 
Some would distinguish nothing here but oaks,
Proud heads conversant with the power and glory
Of heaven’s rays or heaven’s thunderstrokes,
And adumbrators to the understory,
Where, in their shade, small trees of modest leanings
Contend for light and are content with gleanings.
 . 
And yet here’s dogwood: overshadowed, small,
But not inclined to droop and count its losses,
It cranes its way to sunlight after all,
And signs the air of May with Maltese crosses.
And here’s witch hazel, that from underneath
Great vacant boughs will bloom in winter’s teeth.
 . 
Given a source of light so far away
That nothing, short or tall, comes very near it,
Would it not take a proper fool to say
That any tree has not the proper spirit?
Air, water, earth and fire are to be blended,
But no one style, I think, is recommended.
 . 
Richard Wilbur
selected by Paul Karnowski
 . 
The trees in Wilbur’s woods remind us that we all live together, and each of us, big or small, has an important role to play.
— Paul
 . 
✾
 . 
Gaze
 . 
How to spend my days,
and where to fix my gaze?
 . 
Out a wistful window,
to soar with swirling swallows,
brushing wings against
the summer sky.
 . 
Or at the misty mirror,
looking at a lump of flesh
tethered to the ground,
no feathers to be found.
 . 
Paul Karnowski
first published in Grey Sparrow Journal, January, 2026
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our effort to understand and preserve this capacity.   
— Aldo Leopold
 . 
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.     
— Aldo Leopold
 . 
Thank you for celebrating the month of April with International Earth Day (April 22) and National Poetry Month. And thank you, Readers, who have selected poems to share 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.
 . 
— Bill
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2020-11-22
 . 

Posted in Ecopoetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Poetry and Earth – Bear & Bird

April 23, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

Bear Crop 02

Artist – Linda French Griffin

 . 
[ poems by Les Brown, Maura High, Walter de la Mare, Jane Western, 
Jennie Boyd Bull, Sam Barbee, Julia Nunnally Duncan ]
 . 
The Bear
 . 
The black bear lies beside
our green plastic picnic table,
sprawled on the grass like a Labrador.
Her pale brown muzzle,
tipped by black twitching nose,
rests on her massive paw.
 . 
She is dark. Her two-inch
claws curl from rough
gray pads haloed with long hair.
Her midnight coat is smooth,
with a hint of brown
shining in the early morning sun.
 . 
Her ears are round and soft,
erect and dark inside, armed to hear
the rustling of mice, vole or rabbit.
Her relaxed core is ready to wake,
to pounce her massive frame
upon the furry morsels.
 . 
Her sense of smell
acute for finding gnawing
grub, tender roots, ripe
huckleberries on distant bushes.
She knows her mate
by his musky marks.
 . 
She will rise and wander
the forest into the night,
under the dense laurel canopy,
travel to meadows and cliffs
under Ursa major in the indigo sky
and drink in reflected moonlight.
 . 
Unlike Calisto who was placed
among the stars, she is not safe
as she returns to the deep woods
to live with baying dog,
and men in camouflage
cheating the natural order.
 . 
Les Brown
 . 
This poem came from seeing a bear lying outside our window in the mountains where it taught us to remove our bird feeders. I was reflecting on the peaceful majestic bear and the dangerous world it had to return to.
— Les
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Native
 . 
There’s Merrill
with his binoculars
in the Holly Shelter Game Land
in high pocosin with birds
 . 
so many birds
with their songs silhouettes plumage
perch and flight patterns
 . 
as in the trees and sky
over Paradise
patterns
created and evolving
before the Great Naming
 . 
he names them
in languages that birds fly through
 . 
tsi’squa song sparrow ti’nti’wa Passiformes
among the pond pine and titi
greenbrier gallberry
sundew pitcher plants
calling
 . 
chitter chek-check tweet
warblers cardinals finches
call
and he calls back to them
 . 
one by one
as if they were kin and he was glad
to be among them again
 . 
Maura High 
 . 
It was hard to choose just one poem that celebrated the Earth, but this one, “Native,” comes closest to demonstrating what’s so important about conserving our heritage landscapes and how vital the people are who protect and guide us through them. I visited this 64,000-acre game land on a field trip and was inspired not only by the land but also by the person who features in the poem, by his delight, knowledge, respect, and sense of connection with this environment. 
— Maura
 . 
bird
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
The Listeners
 . 
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
 .  . Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
 .  . Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
 .  . Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
 .  . ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
 .  . No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
 .  . Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
 .  . That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
 .  . To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
 .  . That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
 .  . By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
 .  . Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
 .  . ‘Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
 .  . Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
 .  . That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
 .  . Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
 .  . From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
 .  . And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
 .  . When the plunging hoofs were gone.
 . 
Walter de La Mare
selected by Jane Western
 . 
I think the poems [presented this month for Earth Day] clearly shine a light on “place,” the setting, humans on the earth, and how it is that we are solitary individuals yet never alone…. These paths we walk do guide us toward deep connections.
— Jane
 . 
❀
 . 
Morning Prayer
 . 
Let us pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.
Most powerful Lord of all Creation,
We praise you in the movement of the Universe:
in the great spinning Galaxy,
in every tiny particle quivering with your Spirit,
in the gentle breeze and the forceful hurricane.
 . 
We praise you in the foundations of the Earth:
from the towering mountain ridges
to the low soft sandy beaches.
The living desert declares your majesty.
 . 
We praise you, O Creator, in the miracle of living water:
Sustainer of all life; without it, there is nothing.
In the falling rain, trickling streams, muddy rivers,
calm lakes and crashing oceans, your power humbles us.
In the cool quenching of our thirst, we praise your name!
 . 
We praise you in the comforting glow of the firelight:
where, throughout  the millennia, your people have safely gathered
sharing nourishment and preserving your ancient stories.
 . 
Kindle this same flame in our hearts now.
Spark our self-awareness,
that we can confess our own transgressions.
Burn away our sins of the past.
Purify our hearts that we may humbly accept your forgiveness.
Release in us the flame of forgiveness toward others.
 . 
Fill us with Your Love, O God:
Hear our prayers of intercession for those who cannot help themselves.
Transform our hearts into vessels of mercy, into wells of living water,
that we may become your disciples in service to your world.
 . 
We offer thanks to you for claiming us as your own.
We thank you for who we are and all we have.
It is your spirit in us, around us, and your love poured out for all humanity,
through the sacrifice of your Son Jesus,
for which we are grateful beyond measure.
 . 
Now, with open hearts, we set our minds on trusting you alone.
Position us according to your perfect will
that your love will overflow through us
to all we serve in your Holy Name, from this day forward.
 . 
And so it is, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 . 
Jane Western
 .  . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Bird Play
 . 
Birds outside my window
flit to feeder
peck at seeds
perch on railing,
Brilliant cardinal pair
feeds beak to beak
seed to seed.
Woodpecker trundles backward down trunk
nuthatch descends headfirst
titmice and chickadees cavort.
Mourning doves flock below
juncos scratch for seed
song sparrow scavenges.
All play together in home of
sun and wind
leaf and twig
moon and dew.
 . 
Jennie Boyd Bull 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Garden Variety
 . 
Treated timbers frame your raised garden.
Herb boxes: oregano beside mint, and other zest
for your kitchen. Beds burgeoned by your fingers,
raring, seeds rumbling to yield sprigs.
Recommended watering to energize sectors of pods.
 . 
But marring an impeccable walk we bricked-in last year,
familiar weeds flower, screech among your grids.
Each tract sprouts spoils, silver and waxen.
Frilly buds flare, trespass against your grace.
Sour flavors to defile delicate pallet. Invasive
 . 
spines to pilfer sun showers. Corrupt our vision!
Lamb’s ear erupts. Dandelions rage along loam edges.
You react, wring roots. Bristly leaves weep wicked screams.
Defending nature’s zeal, benign growth asserts leniency.
Plead amnesty for each frilly cousin, likewise sun-born.
 . 
Sam Barbee
 . 
“Garden Variety” addresses how we would have nature praise our efforts vs. nature’s essence. Even pesky weeds are part of the natural design.”
— Sam
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Nature
 . 
Yesterday I saw a sharp-shinned hawk
grasping a sparrow in its talons
as it flew toward the woods.
The small bird’s feathers sprinkled the air
as the hawk carried it away.
Later, my husband explained to me
that the hawk would have eyases
in a nest now
and was taking food to her young.
Yet the image of the bird
trapped in the hawk’s clasp
has haunted me
like the memory of the crow
that stole a baby robin from the nest
in our maple tree,
so brazenly carrying the naked creature
through the air
while the parents frantically fluttered about,
chirping in distress.
I watched helpless and horrified
and wanted to kill the crow.
Robert Frost once observed that
nature was cruel,
and when I see the predators around me,
I have to agree.
 . 
Julia Nunnally Duncan
from When Time Was Suspended (Redhawk Publications, 2024)
 . 
I witnessed these incidents involving a hawk and a crow. These were sights that disturbed me, which I express in the poem. The cruelty of nature is my theme, although I understand that animal nature, the desire to survive, feed the young, etc., is nothing unusual. Since I observed the crow seizing the  baby bird and felt anger toward the crow, I have come to respect crows through observing their habits and researching them for my essay “Watching Crows.” In my research, I learned of their intelligence and fierce loyalty to family.
— Julia
 . 
*  eyas — the unfledged or nestling young of a raptor such as falcon or hawk
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
What I know of the Divine sciences and Holy Scriptures, I learnt in woods and fields. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. Listen to a man of experience; thou wilt learn more in the woods than thou canst acquire from the mouth of a magister.
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux
 . 
If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
— Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
 . 
Thank you for celebrating the month of April with International Earth Day (April 22) and National Poetry Month. And thank you, Readers, who have selected poems to share 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.
 . 
— Bill
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
 . 

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

Poetry and Earth – EARTH DAY

April 22, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

 . 
[ poems by William Stafford, David Radavich, Robert Morgan, 
Lenard Moore, Robert Frost, Tori Reynolds ]
 . 
Ask Me
 . 
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made.  Ask me whether
what I have done is my life.  Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt—ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
 . 
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait.  We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
 . 
William Stafford
selected by David Radavich
 . 
“Ask Me” by William Stafford is one of my all-time favorites.  It is profound in thought and feeling, but I also admire the great artistry of how Stafford employs sound, line breaks, punctuation, and rhetorical balance to achieve what for me is a masterpiece.  If I could ever write a poem this good, I should die happy!
— David
 . 
❀
 . 
February
 . 
They call this apple tree “wild.”
And so it bends over the road
like an umbrella or saint
beginning to pray.  Always
 . 
among the first to bloom—
no fruit, it is wild, remember?—
reminding others of their coming
obligations, soon or later
 . 
and then maybe more
glorious for the waiting.
 . 
Every year it is a surprise
beside the road, every year
a bit taller, more redolent
 . 
so even a cynic tired of cold
cocks an eye and writes
a poem about being ready.
     . 
David Radavich     
first published in The Raven’s Perch
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Ironweed
 . 
There is a shade of purple in
this flower near summer’s end that makes
you proud to be alive in such
a world, and thrilled to know the gift
of sight. It seems a color sent
from memory or dream. In fields,
along old trails, at pasture edge,
the ironweed bares its vivid tint,
profoundest violet, a note
from farthest star and deepest time,
the glow of sacred royalty
and timbre of eternity
right here beside a dried-up stream.
 . 
Robert Morgan
from Terroir, Penguin (2011)
 . 
I’ve always been in awe of the dark purple flower often found along the edges of fields and woods. When we lived near Hendersonville in 1970-71 there was a meadow along a branch where many ironweeds thrived. In late summer I walked out there almost every day to enjoy the temporary presence of those special flowers. In many ways that was a tough time of unemployment, but those flowers made a day seem better.
— Robert
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Resurrection Sunday, Early Dinner
April 5, 2026
 . 
We sit at the long table,
anticipating the spicy broth
where we place bok choy,
broccoli, mala, cauliflower, sliced potatoes,
barramundi fish, shaved chicken, fresh eggs,
king trumpet mushrooms, water crest,
La Mian noodles.
All the while I look into my date’s
pearly eyes and imagine our future.
I love that she’s God-fearing
and glimpse the crucifix glinting gold
and gathering silence like an Easter lily.
How I glance at her peach-tinted lips.
Did I tell you that I know their softness,
their sweetness that keeps me longing her
like a sparrow longs for a mate
on a powerline? Did I tell you
that she’s more beautiful than a mimosa,
dogwood, Bradford pear, or cherry blossoms?
We dab our lips with napkins as white
as the cloud-puffs lingering like light.
We leave like lovers that we are,
hungrily holding hands.
 . 
Lenard D. Moore
 . 
I love nature so much. As you know, I have written haiku, tanka, and other Japanese short-form poetry for decades. Haiku especially lead me on a ginko (haiku walk). In short, I love nature walks. In fact, I have also written free verse poems about the natural work, such as the one I am sending, due to the invitation. My Easter Sunday date also loves nature. Thus, I hope the poem speaks for itself. With gratitude!
Blessings — L
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Two Look at Two
 . 
Love and forgetting might have carried them
A little farther up the mountain side
With night so near, but not much further up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of the path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In one last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. “This is all,” they sighed,
“Good-night to woods.” But not so; there was more.
A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall, as near the wall as they.
She saw them in their field, they in hers.
The difficult of seeing what stood still,
Like some up-ended boulder split in two,
Was in her clouded eyes: they saw no fear there.
She seemed to think that, two thus, they were safe.
Then, as if they were something that, though strange,
She could not trouble her mind with too long,
She sighed and passed unscared along the wall.
“This, then, is all. What more is there to ask?”
But no, not yet. A snort to bid them wait.
A buck from round the spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall as near the wall as they.
This was an antlered buck of lusty nostril,
Not the same doe come back into her place.
He viewed them quizzically with jerks of head,
As if to ask, “Why don’t you make some motion?
Or give some sign of life? Because you can’t.
I doubt if you’re as living as you look.”
Thus till he had them almost feeling dared
To stretch a proffering hand –– and a spell-breaking.
Then too passed unscared along the wall.
Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from.
“This must be all.’” It was all. Still, they stood,
A great wave of it going over them,
As if the earth, in one unlooked-for favor
Had made them certain earth returned their love.
 . 
Robert Frost
selected by Tori Reynolds
 . 
I first encountered Robert Frost’s “Two Look at Two”  as a teenager. I lived in Frost’s New England and was an avid horseback rider who spent hours roaming the fields and orchards. I was truly, for the hours I was on my horse, not a single being but a “two” — connected to another being with all the intimacy and fraught tensions of any couple. So, I felt a visceral connection to the idea of “two” proceeding through the landscape that Frost was describing. Wherever I went, I, too, had seen the mark of humans (..,a tumbled wall/With barbed-wire binding) and the mysterious movements of nature (…if a stone/Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;). I always felt it a privilege to move among and within such mysteries.  
 . 
As a young person more comfortable communicating with horses then with words, I had not yet understood the power of language.  Until I read this poem, I hadn’t known that someone else understood the experience of seeing and being seen by nature the way I felt I was when I was out riding my horse.   Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from, perfectly describes how it felt to have Frost stretch a proffering hand  –– to me. His “spell breaking”  became a sudden apprehension:  poetry could be as powerful a connection to nature as nature itself. 
— Tori
 . 
 . 
✾
 . 
Dear Tulip Tree Silk Moth 
 . 
Dear tulip tree silk moth,
dear skunk cabbage,
trout lily, beaver, and
pure green sweat bee,
dear white pine, dear white tail
and yellow-rumped warbler,
dear red clay, granite,
Neuse and Swift Creek,
dear silent breath of the Tuscarora,
 . 
you live and die at the confluence
of human and bulldozer,
humans with our cars and pesticides,
our maps and fences, our wars,
and our crushing booted steps.
 . 
At the confluence of the Deep and Rocky rivers,
you show us how to live
by floating, flying, sprouting, swimming–
you sprout, swim, rest, dash, nest,
pool, chirp, screech, stand tall,
rot, collapse and fall –
 . 
while we tromp, we bike and scramble
over rocky scree, put binoculars to our eyes,
ooh and ah – do you see the green heron
at the edge of Brumley pond?
place a finger to our lips, shush –
can you hear the peepers’ chorus
in the Horton Grove lowlands?
 . 
So, may we steward
by raising our picks, chop and clip
the kudzu vines and stilt-grass invasives,
then gather the welcome walnuts,
and drink its bittersweet beer together.
 . 
May we learn to re-wild
our science, our understanding
and even our minds.
 . 
May we name
all that’s lost, cleared, disappeared –
then walk to the center of the labyrinth
and look beyond its borders –
 . 
as we unwind our worries
with committed steps,
dogged daily steps,
 . 
towards the morning
when we raise our eyes
to search for the downy woodpecker
in the loblolly, listen to the tap tap tap
of its persistent question,
how? how? how?
 . 
and answer with the YES
of the spring winds bending the little bluestem
in the meadows.
 . 
Dear people,
dear scientists
dear creators and clerks
workhorses and mourners,
neighbors, friends, benefactors
–  stewards all –
of this copious, generous, generative,
disappearing land –
 . 
We find ourselves here
on the bridge between
storm and flood,
in the promise
of blue skies and drought,
 . 
to safeguard the fragile hives we tend,
to celebrate the honeyed-habitats we defend.
 . 
Tori Reynolds
 . 
I was asked to write a poem for the Triangle Land Conservancy gala this past February. This poem was the result.  Since it was originally written for a specific audience and to be read aloud, I’ve revised it somewhat make it readable on the page. My hope is that it still rings with my reverence for the Piedmont area of NC and calls us to look closely and love the places we live.
— Tori
 . 
E&A flora hydrangea bee
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.
— Albert Einstein
 . 
I had been fooling myself that I was the only teacher. The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
 . 
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, 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.
 . 
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Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . — Bill
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Doughton Park Tree -- 5/1/2021
 . 

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