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Poetry and Earth – Spring

Posted in Ecopoetry, Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 29, 2026| 9 Comments »

 . 
[ poems by Amy Tilly, Joel Solonche, Suzie Taylor, Kathleen Rowell, 
Esther Mfonyam, Sandra Dreis  ]
 . 
Vernal
 . 
greening of spring onions
fermenting of fall apples
scent orchard air
buds ruffle bare branches
home hemisphere hankers
toward the sun
still-slanted light suffuses gold
in the old dog’s fur
she turns to check my loitering
in the green, gold, and still winter blue
 . 
Amy Copley Tilly
 . 
I wrote this on the vernal equinox, feeling the connections to the seasons and to my old dog. I was just caught up in the swirl of it all! I was down in the 100 year old plus orchard on the Blue Ridge Parkway below my house. I’ve run thousands of miles in that orchard and learned something there in all seasons.
— Amy
 . 

photo by Amy Tilly

 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁❀
 . 
Skunk Cabbage
 . 
A spear that breaks the half-frozen
mud, it does not wait for the permission
of the sun, for it carries a small furnace
in its purple hood. Lured by the smell
like a cellar that never dries, the flies
arrive while the bees are still asleep.
Thick and veined, the leaves unfold like
the ears of a green dog. It’s a stubborn
tenant of the low ground where it drinks
the black water of the winter’s end and
turns the rot of the year into a lung.
By summer it will be a ghost of melted
lace, but now it is the only thing with
a pulse in the muck, a beautiful ugliness
that stays its ground. Listen, the earth
is speaking, and this is its first word.
 . 
Joel Solonche
 . 

photo by Emily Solonche

 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁❀
 . 
Bloodroot
 . 
Blessed be the white bloodroot blooms,
the first ephemerals to herald spring
singing the sleeping earth awake
their faces shine open,
greeting the morning sun
as it warms the slumbering dirt
later folding closed against the darkness and
the black night air
that still shows the does’ breath as
she ambles by.
A dozen petals fall like confetti,
spilling after just a day or so of bloom.
 . 
Suzie Taylor
 . 
Outside has been my refuge and my home. I brought my children there and now my daughter is in Nashville, TN, completing her PhD studying salamanders. Anna and I stay in touch sharing untitled images of magic we find during our days. She, being at lower elevation than I, sent her spring ephemeral images weeks before mine appeared. I participate in Joseph Bathanti’s wonderful poetry workshops on Tuesday nights at FARM CAFÉ, and I wrote this a weeks ago. Nature is such a lovely muse!
— Suzie
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
Garden Meditation
 . 
Growing in my garden, beneath the maple trees
Are Foxgloves by the dozens- purple, pink and dusty green.
They grow like weeds, bold, wild and free.
Never where you plant them- obviously.
 . 
My favorite fern, the Maidenhair, has stems of  rich deep black,
They are fragile, native, delicate, but grace they never lack.
 . 
The shocking fireworks of red are all the Beebalm blooms.
Their minty scent when cut will nicely fill a room.
 . 
Lady’s Mantle catch the dew, like diamonds that will not last.
The  tiny yellow fluffy flowers reach out as I walk past.
 . 
Then there are the lilies, Turk’s Cap, Stella and roadside Day.
Bright orange, white and golden color as in the breeze they sway.
 . 
Hellebore – a hell of a name for such a sturdy flower.
The only one who dares to bloom in Winter’s cold dark hour.
 . 
Sweet William red, begonia pink, some random purple plants,
send rainbows of the spectrum amongst the slugs and ants.
 . 
My garden is my meditation, to tend and wander through.
Always needing, never boring
when you find there’s something new.
 . 
Kathleen Rowell
 . 
I was inspired by a high school horticulture teacher to pursue a degree in horticulture.  I have always found the quiet of a garden makes me smile.  I talk to the plants, scold the deer and sing with the birds. My heart rests when I can smell rain coming as the evening cools.  I know then all is well. This poem written at the Joseph Bathanti’s Tuesday writer’s workshop at FARM Café.
— Kathleen
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁✾
 . 
A Poem
(Mayapple)
 . 
Hiding underneath
a beautiful green leaf,
lusciously growing beside the creek,
was the sight of a delicate white flower.
 . 
If you were not looking
beneath the green leaves
stretching above it,
you would miss its beauty.
 . 
Hiding underneath—
from the harsh sun,
from the strong wind,
from animals in the wild—
was this quiet treasure.
 . 
If you were standing far off,
you would miss it…
underneath.
 . 
Esther Mfonyam
 . 
One beautiful evening after dinner, I received a clear message from nature. While taking my evening walk along the creek at Well of Mercy, I noticed a wildflower that immediately drew my attention. Its leaves looked like an umbrella, and underneath it was a delicate white flower. It struck me in a quiet but powerful way—this flower’s beauty was being preserved by the very thing that also kept it hidden. I only noticed it because a dear friend told me to look along the creek for wildflowers. Otherwise, I might have walked right past it. The word that came to mind as I stood there was umbrella. And I began to think about the times in my life when I have needed the “shade” of others. I thought of my family—how they have made sacrifices to protect and support me through different seasons. They have given their time—offering wisdom, encouragement, and guidance. They have given their resources—helping in moments of real need. They have given their prayers—holding me when my heart felt discouraged and exhausted. But most of all, they have given of themselves. Like the leaves over that flower, their presence has provided covering—not to diminish me, but to preserve me. May this simple image from nature remind you of the times you have provided shade for others, the times shade has been provided for you.
— Esther
 . 
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁✾
 . 
Silly Daffodilly
 . 
Add solar juices,
and the cheddar bulbs open
wearing tiny Victrola noses
promising March melodies,
tunes uploaded to a puffy cloud
then VRUMM, drowned
by a gas mower’s throbbing drone.
 . 
The landscaper rides a John Deere
wearing a Dash baseball cap
and reappears back and forth behind
a fat forsythia a mere ten yards away,
neighbor’s steady Friday-guy who forces
me to reconsider deck enjoyment.
 . 
Solar juices. Victrola noses.
Miraculous quiet.
Wait. A poof. A trill.
Flowerpot to ear, my mood rekindles
as stems bow, tickle my cheek.
I listen as daffodils sing the simple
flourish, TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA,
a fine, spring madrigal.
 . 
Sandra Brodkin Dreis
first appeared in Ravensperch. To be published this summer, 2026, in Good Dirt by Kelsay Books.
 . 
In my mind, I could see an old ad for RCA Victor with a small dog like my Jack Russell, Jillie, listening to the daffodil shaped speaker. Sitting on the deck with my yellow daffodil, I imagined music coming from the flower like an early version of a record player. It would have to be a madrigal, but a happy one, of course. “Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing…..tra la la…
— Sandra
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
The healing potential of flowering plants is an integral part of the deep bond that exists between humans and nature. That flowers have the ability to heal us, not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually, is something that has been recognized and utilized as far back as we know.
— Anne McIntyre, from Flower Power
 . 
In the beauty of nature lies the spirit of hope.
— Author unknown.
 . 
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
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
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IMG_0877
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Poetry and Earth – Bear & Bird

Posted in Ecopoetry, Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

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
 . 
❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
 . 

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Poetry and Earth – Night

Posted in Ecopoetry, Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2026| 2 Comments »

 . 
[ 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
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
 . 
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!
 . 
❁
 . 
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 . 
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 . 
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 . 
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
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