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[ poems by Dana Levin, Christina Baumis, Janice F. Booth,
Natalie Canavor, David Winship, Sherry Siddall ]
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Watching the Sea Go
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Thirty seconds of yellow lichen.
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Thirty seconds of coil and surge,
fern and froth, thirty seconds
of salt, rock, fog, spray.
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Clouds
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moving slowly to the left—
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A door in a rock through which you could see
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__
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another rock,
laved by the weedy tide.
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Like filming breathing—thirty seconds
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of tidal drag, fingering
the smaller stones
down the black beach—what color
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was that, aquamarine?
Starfish spread
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their salmon-colored hands.
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__
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I stood and I shot them.
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I stood and I watched them
right after I shot them: thirty seconds of smashed sea
while the real sea
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thrashed and heaved—
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They were the most boring movies ever made.
I wanted
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to mount them together and press Play.
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__
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Thirty seconds of waves colliding.
Kelp
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with its open attitudes, seals
riding the swells, curved in a row
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just under the water—
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the sea,
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over and over.
Before it’s over.
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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
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❀
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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
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Lake Freeman
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Curled against the nestling seat curve,
strands of hair blowing like dandelion seeds.
Dipping fingers in clear lake water
impermanent patterns sparkle,
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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
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in the boat’s churning frothy wake.
I am young, once again.
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Tina Baumis
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁ ❀
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Blue Spaces Elegy *
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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and the farmer’s family lives
somewhere else.
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Janice F. Booth
* Blue spaces are environments with prominent water features known to improve our well-being, similar to “green spaces.”
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✾
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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
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City Trees
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Hinted at vistas way beyond my limited view.
I did not understand those trees, but loved them.
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Natalie Canavor
from The Song in the Room
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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
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Watershed Community
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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
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over and over.
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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.
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Do for others downstream
as you would have
others upstream
do for you.
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David Winship
Bristol, Tennessee
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October Tide
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A nor’easter dabbles off the coast
raising the water to whiteness,
the wind to forgetting itself
in gusts and lurches.
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Back canals are sober enough
for cormorants to lounge
wings stretched in worship
as deep cicadas drone in the cedars.
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The tide escapes as it always does
twice a day, responding to the
slippery Moon, pulling the blood
in flood time, neaps and springs.
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Gravities align, Sun and Moon
dance out of habit,
the perfect mathematics
just enough to keep us here.
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Sherry Siddall
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✾
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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
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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
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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.
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Send a your poem(s) in the body of the email or as .DOC or .RTF to:
ecopoetry@griffinpoetry.com
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Please include your comments or reaction to the poem. And publication acknowledgments if previously published.
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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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Thanks again for joining the conversation.
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— Bill
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Thank you, Bill, for these words of water and earth, and humanities connection to both. Some painfully beautiful.