Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘ecology’ Category

Earth Day Prelude – Three

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 19, 2024| 5 Comments »

 . 
April 19, 2024
 . 
…the path to heaven 
doesn’t lie down in flat miles. 
It’s in the imagination 
with which you perceive 
this world 
and the gestures 
with which you honor it.
++++++ Mary Oliver
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Insects with Long Childhoods
 . 
June bug, stag beetle, cicada –
three, seven, thirteen years as larvae
 . 
feasting underground in the gentle
rot of roots and castoffs, gone generations,
 . 
only a few weeks in the light
sharp as the blades of consciousness, incessant
 . 
buzz, cosmic background of loss
threaded through late summer’s throbbing
 . 
days, lush nights, a brevity so full
it must feel like th eternity they came from.
 . 
I have a child who asks a question
of the air’s every hum. He has not learned grief.
 . 
Sky, he says, and shovels soil into his mouth,
let’s it drip out mud.
 . 
Hannah Fries
from ECOTHEO Review, 3/2024
 . 
Shared by Lynda Rush Myers, Durham NC, who writes:
 . 
The poet, Hannah Fries, reminds me of Pattiann Rogers: scientific, technical, yet capturing the dense brevity of her subjects’ lives. The turn of the poem came as a touching surprise.  Every parent can relate.  A child’s word and actions capture his reality. The mother enjoys the unforgettable moment, knowing her son will learn grief all too soon.
 .
++++++ Lynda
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
There is only one subject:  what it feels like to be alive.  Nothing is irrelevant.  Nothing is typical.
++++++ Richard Rodriquez, in American Scholar, Spring 2002
 . 
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. 
++++++ Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
The Fly
 . 
Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away.
 . 
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
 . 
For I dance,
And drink, & sing
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
 . 
If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,
 . 
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live
Or if I die.
 . 
William Blake (1757 – 1827)
from Songs of Experience; in the public domain.
 . 
Shared by Paul Karnowski, Asheville NC, who writes:
 . 
I like the connection Blake makes between the narrator and the “trivial” fly.  Humans too easily dismiss the rest of the natural world because we have the ability to “think.”  But it’s the countless thoughtless acts of blind hands – from other humans – that bring about our demise. Life and death connects us all – from the greatest thinker to the lowliest fly. 
 . 
++++++ Paul
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Am I leading the life that my soul, / Mortal or not, wants me to lead is a question / That seems at least as meaningful as the question / Am I leading the life I want to live.
++++++ Carl Dennis, A Chance for the Soul from Practical Gods
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
If I Fell
 . 
Crow knows me.
Can see the difference
between me and another.
 . 
Gave me a feather
I keep
in case I need to fly.
 . 
I know Crow
from Blackbird
and Raven
yet wonder
what Crow
would want
to keep
from me.
 . 
Perhaps a token
of my essence
 . 
in case Crow needs
to dream of flying.
 . 
David Dixon
Poetry In Plain Sight 2024, NC Poetry Society
 . 
Shared by Jenny Bates, Germanton, NC, who writes:
 . 
Life is a process of waking up from a long and ancient sleep of the soul. David Dixon embodies this whether he means to or not in his poetry. This poem I chose to send, If I Fell, has also been chosen for 2024 Poetry in Plain Sight through the NC Poetry Society.
As far as my own poem, it is a plea, a prayer that each of us has to fill up the emptiness inside us in different ways…even the Earth. My poem, Conceived and Born is from my Pushcart nominated book, ESSENTIAL.
 . 
++++++ Jenny
 .
❦
 .
Conceived and Born
 .
There’s no suckling here
 .
as though we were
 .
going to get some anyway
 .
The sanctity of Earth is a fast.
 .
The holy presence of prayer a fast.
 .
We are born of a mother that is not
dependent on us.
 .
She is a planet — and a small, fragile
one at that.
 .
Jenny Bates, Germanton NC
from Essential, Redhawk Publications © 2023
 .
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 .
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.
++++++ William Shakespeare, As You Like It
 .
❦ ❦ ❦
 .
To celebrate EARTH DAY 2024 we are featuring seven posts of poems submitted by readers – poems by William Blake to Walt Whitman, Robinson Jeffers to A.R.Ammons to Linda Pastan, and by a number of contemporary poets. Check in every day or two – connect to the earth and to each other!
 .
❦ ❦ ❦
 .
 . 
 .

Read Full Post »

Earth Day Prelude – Two

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, Imagery, tagged , , , , , on April 17, 2024| 8 Comments »

 . 
April 17, 2024
 . 
While calling ourselves intelligent, we’ve lost touch with the natural world. As a result, we’ve lost touch with our own souls. I believe we can’t access our full intelligence and wisdom without some real connection to nature.
I think of soul as anything’s ultimate meaning which is held within. Soul is the blueprint inside of every created thing telling it what it is and what it can become. When we meet anything at that level, we will respect, protect, and love it.
++++++ Richard Rohr
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
This Hill
 . 
this hill
crossed with broken pines and maples
lumpy with the burial mounds
of uprooted hemlocks (hurricane
of ‘thirty-eight) ++ out of their rotting hearts
generations rise trying once more
to become the forest
 . 
just beyond them
tall enough to be called trees
in their youth like aspen++ a bouquet
of young beech is gathered
 . 
they still wear last summer’s leaves
the lightest brown almost translucent
how their stubbornness decorates
the winter woods
 . 
on this narrow path
ice holds the black undecaying
oak leaves in its crackling grip
oh ++ it’s become too hard to walk
++ ++ ++ a sunny patch ++ I’m suddenly
in water to my ankles ++ April
 . 
Grace Paley (1922-2007)
from Fidelity, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux © 2008
 . 
Shared by Joan Barasovska, Chapel Hill NC, who writes:
 . 
I’m precisely connected to this poem in several ways. Grace Paley grew up in New York City — I grew up in nearby Philadelphia — but writes occasionally about her connection to the natural world, as I do. I live in a wooded area, and although the trees surrounding me aren’t birches or aspens, in mid-March they are bare and some “still wear last summer’s leaves.” When Paley wrote “This Hill” she was an older woman, and walking in the woods was becoming difficult, though the desire was there, all true for me.
 . 
++++++ Joan
 . 
❦
 . 
The Day I Walked on Fire
 . 
it wasn’t fire
it was ginkgo leaves
the sun lit them yellow
they were juicy with heat
 . 
the day I walked on ginkgo leaves
I imagined they were fire
that my shoes were melting
that my feet were burning
 . 
and I felt no pain
on that autumn day
when I burned to be
a holy woman
 . 
Joan Barasovska
from Orange Tulips, Redhawk Publishing, © 2022
 . 
IMG_1677.jpg
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
++++++ John Fitzgerald Kennedy
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Trees
 . 
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
 . 
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
 . 
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
 . 
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
 . 
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
 . 
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
 . 
Joyce Kilmer (1886 – 1918)
https://poets.org/poem/trees; this poem is in the public domain
 . 
Shared by Dee Neil, Elkin NC, who writes:
 . 
We recited this poem every day in Mrs. Black’s first grade class and I have always loved it. I was supposed to go camping there [Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in western North Carolina] with my son’s family last summer, but I fell and broke my arm the week before we were scheduled to go. Still on my bucket list for this year. This is on the back of a hiking journal my daughter-in-law made for me for the trip.
 . 
++++++ Dee
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. 
++++++ Robin Wall Kimmerer
 . 
Margaret&Birds
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Banding Hummingbirds 
 . 
+++ San Pedro River, Arizona
 . 
+++ +++ I, who know nothing of ornithology,
wear sticker number nineteen. This release,
the last of the day, is mine. Under the awning
the ornithologist at the table puts a straw to her lips
and blows, parting the feathers to check for mites.
There are mites.
 . 
+++ +++ She cradles the bird in one hand,
sexes it, names the species (Anna’s), and figures
the approximate age. Places it in a miniature sling
and weighs it, wraps the metal band around one leg.
I walk over to the designated grassy area,
both hands in my pockets.
 . 
+++ +++ +++ The day is raw.
When it’s time, I hold out a palm, now warm.
The assistant fits the tubes of a stethoscope
to my ears, pressing the disc against my bird.
I hear a low whir, a tiny motor running in my hand.
Up to twelve hundred beats a minute, she says.
 . 
+++ I, who know so little,
barely take a breath. My bird’s head is a knob
of red iridescence on the fleshy pad of my hand.
I am nothing but a convenient warming bench,
yet for now I am that bench. Warm.
His breast is thin-bone hollow, she says,
 . 
+++ +++ where he should be round.
His eyes dark and still, his feet tucked
behind his body. He lies there, that tiny motor.
I don’t think of years ago, my mother, my father-
those I loved who, having lain down, never rose up.
For once, I know the worth,
 . 
++++++ at least to me.  What I don’t know
is whether this bird in hand will rouse
the way he did earlier, pinched between thumb
and index finger and tipped toward a feeder,
when he drank with conspicuous hunger.
You could see the tongue.
 . 
Susan Laughter Meyers
from My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, Winner of the 2012 Cider Press Review Editor’s Prize
 . 
Shared by Richard Allen Taylor, Myrtle Beach SC, who writes:
 . 
I was wracking my brain and finally it occurred to me to look on my bookshelf for Susan Laughter Meyers’s My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass. There are actually several poems in the book that might be candidates for Earth Day, but I was especially attracted to this one for several reasons. It reminds me that sometimes you can tell the story through the images (even if literal) rather than trying to “explain.” (I need to be reminded of that every day, it seems.) The poem has a little mystery. (Why are they banding the hummingbirds? Do the mites present a danger to their health? Are the bones in the chest supposed to be hollow or has the bird been sick? I’ll have to look this stuff up or else I won’t sleep tonight.) 
++++++ Richard
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
. . . when man and nature
got married they agreed never to divorce although
they knew they could never be happy & would have only
the one child Art who would bring mostly grief
to them both . . .
++++++ Firewood, Midquest, Fred Chappell
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
To celebrate EARTH DAY 2024 we are featuring seven posts of poems submitted by readers – poems by William Blake to Walt Whitman, Robinson Jeffers to A.R.Ammons to Linda Pastan, and by a number of contemporary poets. Check in every day or two – connect to the earth and to each other!
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2021-10-23
 . 
 . 

Read Full Post »

Signature

Posted in ecology, Photography, poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on April 12, 2024| 5 Comments »

 . 
[with 3 poems from Visions International]
 . 
The Tending
 . 
Each day made a play for eternity then,
just as now each day shrinks
to a blurry moment’s recall. But still
there is the flat porch roof where a child
would lie down to watch
the clouds slowly changing shape,
 . 
or the blue, unfathomable sky
opening over, and puzzle where he was
before birth, before conception,
or if the world of sensation
had wiped his angel memory.
Cypress-tree shadow reached, as they
 . 
still do, across the lawn at evening,
and again I twist backwards
through a wooden sash window
into the long unoccupied bedroom
of my parents. Old clothes,
a straw-hat clinging to a wall, a stopped
 . 
alarm clock on the mantel.
And here, a navy-striped bolster,
the dent left by their sleeping heads
imagined as touchable still,
the love between us arguing against loss,
the tending they brought
 . 
to each sadness and terror of thought,
but more to an obvious wound –
the skinned knee dabbed
with Dettol; a beaker of oatmeal tipped
into a cold bath as a salve
for sunburn; a sewing needle squeezed
 . 
from a pin cushion bristling
with needles, the small hand held
forward into light, the gentle, tortuous
teasing out of a thistle thorn
and this placed – a charm,
frail tiny, golden – on the child’ palm
 . 
Patrick Deeley – Dublin, Ireland
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Foamflower
 . 
The last day of March – at the edge of the woods red maple, always impatient, always profligate, spreads its arms to offer a jillion winged seeds, the fire at its twigtips cooled to pale smolder. Deeper beneath the canopy leafbuds are swelling on oak and hickory, tangible pressured suspense, not yet quite to bursting. Ephemerals race to make sugar from thin sunlight before the overstory closes and their beds grow dark. Trout lily and hepatica already bloomed out; bloodroot roaring full throat; rue anemone flinging itself in galaxies up the ridge.
 . 
And what’s this? Foamflower has poked its first slender finger up between last year’s coppered leaves. A pale nubbin, a lifting spike, two or three then tomorrow a full maypole of tiny florets to comprise the rising inflorescence. Tiarella cordifolia, little crowns with heart-shaped leaves. What is its occupation in this temperate glade? What does it promise me other than its beauty?
 . 
Has it promised me anything? Should it? Perhaps I can tell you a story about the company foamflower keeps in this beech-dominated neighborhood: pussytoes, star chickweed, the throng of early blooming companions. Perhaps I’ll kneel to discover its native bee pollinators or wonder how its minute seeds disperse themselves. I might even recognize these felsic outcroppings and recall its family name, Saxifrage, Stone-breaker. But Lord of creation, save me from asking, “What good is it to me?” Expect a poultice of its leaves to heal my burns and scalds? Brew a tea to soothe my mouth and brighten my eye? Shall I read in its signature only whatever good use I can make of it?
 . 
On the seventh day the Lord looked out upon everything created and declared, “It is good!” And then rested. Never let me rest until I have looked around me, all around, water and stone, flower and tree, worm and beetle, turtle and bird, each of them good, in themselves and of themselves. Each one living usefulness that comprises its own being. What is my occupation in this temperate glade? What may I promise all these that surround me? To be a good companion in the community of all.
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
O Doves
(Lima, Peru, 6 am)
and he saw the Spirit of God descent like a dove . . . Matthew 3:16
 . 
Shy ones, the shades of buttermilk
and cirrus cloud,
 . 
forgive the man and woman
cursing the scrabble of your bones on the
bedroom window ledge.
 . 
They are harried creatures
waking out of sleep’s egg
to the greasy clot of day.
 . 
They know only hunger,
which is the world’s stark treason,
 . 
and the mockery of iridescent necks
pecking the gray flagstones for crumbs.
 . 
How can they love the immaculate
cooing of your beaks so high in the blue air,
 . 
having forgotten the signs
of invisible things?
 . 
Maria Rouphail – Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
the gilded angel on the spire / draws the sun to its dewy face
 . 
landscapes advance / and dig their hooks in the elongated shadow/ you drag behind you
 . 
a child’s sleep soothed by rain’s ticking / on the other side of the earth
 . 
an accordion of hands fixing my hair
 . 
I smooth my quilt, where her dress scraps are stitched
 . 
a pair of wired gold rim glasses / like John Lennon’s
 . 
the water above the springs squeaks like pebbles
 . 
Here is the plain brown envelope with the hand-printed address and the Pete Seeger postal stamp. I slip out the slender booklet, cardstock cover illustrated by Malaika Favorite. Inside a listing of poems and their poets – Bulgaria, North Carolina, Wales, Macedonia, Texas, Ireland. And then the saddle-stapled pages, their lines wandering in the familiar, distinctive font, and the words . . . language . . . images.
 . 
After reading many issues of Visions International over many years, I still wonder how editor Bradley Strahan draws these voices to him. How he creates this international community of human soul. I wonder how he accomplishes it, but I may be learning a bit of what he is listening for, what he seeks and chooses as he compiles each collection. Even more compelling than the stories the poems tell are their images: elemental, bedrock, true. I read phrases that ring with harmonies I’ve never quite heard before and yet they strike as perfectly right and correct. The language is new and yet it enters me and becomes me. (And I have to confess, there is just something about those Irish poets.)
 . 
Here are old neighbors, like Maria Rouphail from Raleigh and Jessie Carty from Huntersville, but here are my new old neighbors from every corner of the earth, all drawn together through their poems. Drop Bradley a line and join the community.
 . 
Visions International / 309 Lakeside Drive / Garner, NC 27529 – 4 issues = $25
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Drive
. . . roll down the window, and let the wind blow back your hair.
+++ – Bruce Springsteen, Thunder Road
 . 
My first love and I would circle the Blue Ridge
listening to Thunder Road, caught in a spiral –
the song, the earth, and us – a springboard
for leaping. Ancient and settled,
those mountains, a silhouette absorbing music
from our high school parties at the VFW.
Moths and gnats reduced to a fever
clouding porchlights, while kissing was its own
stratosphere. Who needed to breathe anyway?
Not when you’re a new mythology
sharing sixpacks of beer and meadows jacked
in the sweet everlasting – a wildflower
native to the state from which we’d grown.
We kept the geographies of each other’s
bodies beneath our tongues, but the sky
was an impossible parallel. Never mind that
we craved nothing linear. He and I, divergent lines,
a palm reader would have said about the future,
lanterning us in, cloud-swept from the open road.
W didn’t we marry at eighteen, honeymoon
nearby at the Peaks of Otter like all the other
teenage brides? You never asked me if I wanted to
stop. The truth is, I didn’t. I needed to witness
the horizon unobstructed by mountains
where trees shook colors from their crowns,
their roots tangled in bedrock. It was
something of a dance, the way our feet flew
over tar and gravel, spun around blind turns.
The valley that had fevered and pushed us out,
lay spent and sprawled beneath the open windows.
Those nights we rumbled through, we left nothing
but music growing fainter until it was gone.
 . 
Laura Ross – Mount Dora, Florida, USA
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
 . 
 . 

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts