Earth Day Every Day

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Ridges and Ruins – Poems for the Earth

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, tagged Bill Griffin, Earth Day, Earth Day 2025, Earth Day Every Day, ecology, Ecopoetry, imagery, Jessi Waugh, nature, nature photography, nature poetry, NC Poets, poetry, Southern writing, West Carteret High School on April 29, 2025| 5 Comments »

[poems selected by and written by the students

of West Carteret High School, Morehead City, North Carolina, USA]

Earlier this month I asked Jessi Waugh, teacher/scientist/poet and instructor in Earth and Environmental Science, if she would like to have her high school students contribute Poems for the Earth. Jessi replied Yes! and then this:

Several days before the poem-writing lesson, I gave my students the assignment to post an EcoPoem to a class discussion. They could post any poem or song lyrics related to nature. In this discussion format, students are able to see each other’s posts and like or comment. Few interacted, but they did see each other’s poems as I scrolled through the class submissions.

This assignment saw some of the expected favorites: Robert Frost, Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss. It also saw poems obviously chosen by a Google Search for “ecopoem example,” as I knew it would. But I got unexpected and delightful responses as well, such as:

Stick your leaves back on

My mother planted you the day I was born.

I grew with you.

I remember trying to stick your leaves back on in autumn;

I was scared of you changing.

Yet as time passed, my attempts stood no chance.

The cruel seasons ripped apart your branches.

The cruel season ripped me apart, too.

You looked so unrecognizable by the time winter ended,

I didn’t even wanna be near you.

My mother made me blow out a candle for you every year.

She hasn’t lit one in 1…2…3… I lost count.

I grew without you.

You stood tall, but I only kept changing.

I was scared of changing.

I’m 16 now.

A storm ripped you from the earth.

I’m trying to stick your leaves back on.

I wish you could do the same to me.

Emily M

published March 27, 2024 at https://redroompoetry.org/student-poems/stick-your-leaves-back-on/

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The Rose that Grew from Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew

from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature’s law is wrong it

learned to walk without having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,

it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else ever cared.

Tupac Shakur

from the book by the same title; more at https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/the-rose-that-grew-from-concrete

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Before they wrote a poem, Jessi gave her students this assignment: “Analyze the connections between the biosphere and other Earth systems (geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere).” She took them to the back soccer field at their school, which is surrounded on three sides by forest and powerline land. She had cut 2′ x 2′ pieces of an old tarp for them to sit on, and once they were outdoors she handed them a clipboard along with the assignment log sheet and told them to sit facing the forest and far enough apart so they couldn’t distract each other.

When we first got out there, many students sat in the middle of the field or facing away from the forest, and I came around to encourage them to sit near the wild areas and turn towards them. Most did. Others were not comfortable and chose to stand or remain near the middle of the field, especially girls wary of jumping spiders.

Students documented the abiotic and biotic factors in the ecosystem, reinforcing those terms, and created a food web with the 10 organisms they observed. These were concepts from class (trophic level, energy flow, limiting factors) put into practice. They then answered a series of questions about interactions between ecosystem components and biodiversity, and then crafted their poems, all while outside.

Before taking them outside that day, I read the students one of my own poems, Dunation, but didn’t tell them it was mine. I told them to listen for the repetition of sounds and them suggested they repeat sounds in their poems as an easy literary device.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for sitting in the back field for an hour. We saw at least 20 species between all the different insects, herbaceous perennials, trees, and birds. Likely closer to 50. In general, students were quiet and reflective and did a great job of observing the ecosystem. – Jessi Waugh

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selected student poems . . .

The Great Outdoors

When I step outside to the great outdoors

I see nothing but change, out of our culture nothing

stays the same

not the trees, not the grass, not the very ground you stand on

everything around us is just waiting on its moment

When I step outside to the great outdoors

I notice change is inevitable but nothing to fear

everything changes even just saying

“the last time I was here”

or the time and age you got, like the sound

of the creek, of the animals above, or even the things

that all of us take for granted like a mother’s love

Everything changes

please don’t be afraid

be glad you have what you have

and enjoy the change

Kevin Hunter, Student at West Carteret High School

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In the Back Soccer Field

With all these limiting beige walls I’m stuck with

for over 5 hours a day, it feels

refreshing to see the leaves, feel the breeze

crunch the brittle soil like the wandering ant

I make my pilgrimage

toward NATURE

My eyes are stimulated by something that isn’t

a screen but the echoes of human

development still make their unpleasant sounds

nature is something that can’t be replicated

truly by plastic or plaster models or

the dull green of money, as nature is

VIBRANT and cannot be comprehended by man

no matter what

Kyndall Griffin, Student at West Carteret High School

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Life Cycle

Green

Life abounds

Sunlight kisses leaves

Insects buzz, a symphony of life

Grass

Tiny world

Hidden, teeming

spiders spin, frogs leap

nature’s dance, a vibrant scene

Balance

Stillness

Whispers softly

Decomposers working

Life to death, death into life

Cycle

Jazireyah Johnson, Student at West Carteret High School

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and another favorite selected by Jessi’s students . . .

rises the moon

Days seem sometimes as if they’ll never end

Sun digs its heels to taunt you

But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same

Rises the moon

Days fade into a watercolour blur

Memories swim and haunt you

But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke

Rises the moon

Oh-oh, close your weary eyes

I promise you that soon the autumn comes

To darken fading summer skies

Breathe, breathe, breathe

Days pull you down just like a sinking ship

Floating is getting harder

But tread the water, child, and know that meanwhile

Rises the moon

Days pull you up just like a daffodil

Uprooted from its garden

They’ll tell you what you owe, but know even so

Rises the moon

You’ll be visited by sleep

I promise you that soon the autumn comes

To steal away each dream you keep

Breathe, breathe, breathe

lyrics and music by Liana Flores

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xddn3kJhhY

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Dunation

The sorrows they pile heart-high

head-high, sky-high like peaks

of primary dunes against winter-white

an accumulation of minutia

a hummock too precipitous to persist

Spring’s avalanche comes

grains slip-slide down dune slipfaces

so suddenly, the sound akin to arctic ice breaking

tern eggs crackling, oak limbs fracturing

in furious full-February gales

Hearts, heads, skies on fire

here comes March’s awakening

dunes crash-topple into manageable talus

Here we come

tip-toeing across the tops

paper children tumbling

over ridges and ruins

Jessi Waugh, Earth and Environmental Science Teacher, West Carteret High School

The main reaction from students to this project was appreciation for the time sitting outdoors, and they enjoy the social aspect of posting “favorite’ ecopoems on our class discussions. As much as I’d like to turn it into a week of poetry discussions, that would be terribly off-topic for my science class, and I used it primarily as a way to reflect on the connections between earth’s “spheres” (atmo, hydro, litho, geo) and how they interact in ecosystems. In general, I notice that students are disillusioned with politics and technology. They, like all students I’ve taught, enjoy hands-on experience and labs. I think poetry and teens could mix well in many places. – Jessi Waugh

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West Carteret High School is in Morehead City, North Carolina, in the southeastern USA. It is a public 9-12th grade high school, with about 1100 students. Approximately 40% of students are economically disadvantaged. Jessi Waugh teaches Earth and Environmental Science, since 2000 a required course for graduation. She also teaches Biology and Marine Science as needed, and has been a teacher for 12 years. Her students are all 9th & 10th grade, ages 14-16. The poems submitted are from both the honors and standard classes. She holds a Master’s in Teaching Secondary Science and an undergraduate Biology degree. I like teaching this course and age group; it’s my niche.

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Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, Imagery, tagged Bill Griffin, Daniela Danz, Earth Day 2024, Earth Day Every Day, ecology, Ecopoetry, Gus Speth, nature, nature photography, nature poetry, poetry, Sam Love, William Blake on April 24, 2024| 2 Comments »

April 24, 2024

Our true home lies outside, deep in the wilderness of forest and mountain, river and desert and sea, the source of our being and the destiny of our great meandering blundering dreaming journey through time. Like Odysseus in his wanderings, we are homeward bound whether we know it or not.

++++++ Edward Abbey

Wilderness has drawn humans closer to God throughout history. Why should we, in the twentieth century, believe this is suddenly no longer true? Long after the Exodus, in a time of recurring apostasy, Hosea spoke of God wishing to ‘allure’ the people back into the wilderness yet again — this time to the parched hills beyond Jericho. There, wrote the prophet, God would ‘speak tenderly’ to them.

++++++ David Douglas

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

++++++ John Muir

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[Come wilderness into our homes]

Come wilderness into our homes

break the windows come

with your roots and your worms

spread yourself over our wishes

our waste-sorting systems our prostheses

and outstanding payments

cover us with your rustling greenery

and your spores cover us that we may

become green: green and reverent

green and manifest green and replaceable

come weather with your storms

and sweep the slates off the roofs come

with snow and hail smash

through the collective sleep

we are all enjoying in our beds

our worn rationalizations come ice

and form glaciers over the shadow banks

and our drive for liquidity

come through the cracks under the doors

you desert with your sands fill

our desolation up until it forms into a solid mass

rise up over the search-and-rescue teams

and our growth compulsion trickle into

the control panels of the missiles

and the missile defense systems into

the think tanks and the hearts of internet trolls

just leave the hedgehogs with their

snuffling so that it may calm us

come rising sea levels

up over our shorelines both the developed

and the undeveloped the homey

lowland areas wash

jellyfish into our soup bowls

and ramshorn snails into our hair

as we swim in each other’s direction panicked

with our yearning for one another

because almost nothing is left because it’s all gone

and thoroughly soaked through with regrets

finger-pointing and tranquilizers

come earthquakes shatter the apartments

which we built on the foundations

of how we always did everything

come tremors fill the mine shafts

the end of work and

the literature of redemption bury anger

and affection and all manner of added values

swallow up the memories come tremors

hurry so that the bedrock covers us

so we are covered with water desert weather

and over everything that which covers all the wilderness

Daniela Danz

Translated from the German by Monika Cassel

[Komm Wildnis in unsere Häuser] from the journal POETRY,December 2023

https://poems.com/poem/come-wilderness-into-our-homes/

Shared by Bill Griffin, Elkin NC, who writes:

To the ancient mind, wilderness was dangerous, something to be feared and held at bay even while mysterious and fascinating. In recent times, as we’ve come to consider ourselves ‘modern’, wilderness has been conquered – we control it, we rule it, we exploit and use wilderness. Indigenous voices tell us we are one with the wild and can only be fully ourselves when we know and respect wildness. Romantic voices long to return to Eden and live in harmony with wilderness. The voices of mystics and spiritual seekers remind us that wildness is in us and part of us, that all things are one and that we have cut off a vital part of ourselves when we separate ourselves from the wild.

This poem by Daniela Danz brings us full circle to our 21st century shuddering realization – wild nature is back and beyond our control. For a few centuries we’ve kept wilderness at arm’s length, just outside the widening circle of our campfires, but now the seas rise and the storms mount. All of our consumption economies and gods of growth and development will not keep us safe. In the literal sense, wilderness comes into our homes, welcome or not. In the metaphorical sense, perhaps it is not too late indeed to invite it in, ‘come’. Perhaps we are on the threshold of a new age in which we admit our part in wild nature and its part in us. Or perhaps we shall be covered.

++++++ Bill

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My own poem, Spent, begins with fatalism and regret but discovers, I hope, some communion with wild nature to end on a note of connection. – Bill

Spent

Coreopsis spent, limp rays curling,

curdled disk and one lone fly like aster’s

dry winged seed perched on delusion

that the head still holds some promise:

I turn away from everything sere

and brown – where else would I turn

this sullen afternoon? until

she calls me to join her, leaf strewn trail

beside Grassy Creek where it sings

to itself oblivious, two soft pairs

of footfalls among fern and shadow,

partridge berry makes its own warm light

and ground cedar runs rings around us:

I crouch before a cranefly orchid, determined

buds dainty as dewclaws still unopened

mid-July (and absent basal winter leaves

pocked olive but upturn them for satin

underleaf maroon), yet while she reminds me

about co-evolution, blossoms that couple

with their pollinators, I can’t stop seeing

that useless fly, bulging maroon ommatidia,

wings’ blush iridescence, proboscis needle

dripping one sour jewel spent, until

for just this moment the world opens itself

around us and I open to its secrets, kingfisher

rattle from another planet, fecund dank

of moss and fungus, every vireo our familiar,

swelling benediction breeze that gossips

among beech and laurel and promises

always, always something new.

Bill Griffin

finalist for the James Applewhite Poetry Prize of North Carolina Literary Review, 2023

https://nclr.ecu.edu/issues/nclr-winter-online-2024/ page 48

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Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

++++++ R. Buckminster Fuller

We cannot be truly ourselves in any adequate manner without all our companion beings throughout the earth.

++++++ Thomas Berry

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The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water’d heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake (1757-1827)

https://poets.org/poem/tyger ; this poem is in the public domain

Shared by Les Brown, Troutman NC, who writes:

I love Blake’s Tyger not only because of its incredible poetic craft and rhythm, but for its recognition of the beauty and duality of the tiger as a creature of strength and beauty but also an instrument involved in the balance of nature.

++++++ Les

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The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,

The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,

And all that famous harmony of leaves,

Has blotted out man’s image and his cry.

++++++ William Butler Yeats

It seems clear, as I’ve argued, that the humanities can be broadened enough to make the connection [with science] in three ways. First, escape the bubble in which the unaided human sensory world remains unnecessarily trapped. Second, sink roots by connecting the deep history of genetic evolution to the history of cultural evolution. And third, diminish the extreme anthropocentrism that hobbles the bulk of humanistic endeavors.

++++++ Edward O. Wilson, The Origins of Creativity (2017)

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Bread and Roses

When the big sea has stopped rising

and the maps we’re through revising

and I can think of storms as friends,

I’ll go down to the beach again.

I’ll stand still there in that bright surf

and sing a song to this dear Earth.

I’ll sing for climate change to end.

I’ll sing tears for where we have been.

I’ll sing to things that we have learned –

the fossils we should not have burned

releasing the power of former suns,

bringing losses that cannot be undone.

Sad losses the children will inherit.

Species gone without much credit,

thanks to the piles of money earned

and all the corners left unturned.

I’ll sing to anger rising still.

Our leaders let firms do their will.

The people did assert control

but not before the barons stole.

Our job is now to make the best,

finding purpose in what is left.

It is a joy to live to fight

and on that beach to fly two kites.

Gus Speth

Shared by Sam Love, New Bern NC, who writes:

I love the lyrical nature of this poem using the “songs” as a way to tie assaults on our planet’s web together. Also the transition from songs for the abuses to singing “to anger rising still”. A call to action. And here is one of my poems that is more literal with the theme of Earth Day and all things being connected.

++++++ Sam

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The Web

No one is alone

We are all part

of life’s web

In each breath we inhale

remnants of star dust

and exhale nourishment

for the Earth’s plants

Each action we take

to support our bloated

lifestyle tugs on a strand

of the planet’s web

To understand our impact

visualize a spider’s web where

pulling on one strand

alters the whole

Sam Love

Shared by Gus Speth, South Carolina, who writes:

The following poem by Sam Love is lovely but cautionary. It reminds us that we humans are part of an interconnected web of life here on Earth and part also of the journey of the universe. And gently it says we should act like it.

++++++ Gus

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We need the tonic of wilderness… the silence, the cold and solitude… to be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor… pasturing freely where we never wander.

++++++ Henry David Thoreau

Wildness made man but man cannot make wildness. He can only spare it.

++++++ David Brower

Wilderness is two things — fact and feeling. It is a fund of knowledge and a spring of influence. It is the ultimate source of health — terrestrial and human.

++++++ Benton MacKaye, the man who planned and conceived the Appalachian Trail

Any creative deed at the human level is a continuation of the creativity of the universe.

++++++ Thomas Berry

Life is a chemical system able to replicate itself through autocatalysis and to make mistakes that gradually increase the efficiency of autocatalysis.

++++++ National Geographic, Jan. ‘03

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Special thanks throughout these Earth Day celebrations to my hiking buddy and nature guide Mike Barnett, who has let me into the wilderness and won’t let me leave. Most of the quotations included in these sections are compiled in Mike’s Medicine Bag, which he carries with him into every new adventure

And EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS to my companion in the universe, Linda French Griffin, who allows the cosmos to flow through her pen onto paper. She has given permission for me to use a few of her drawings throughout these Earth Day celebrations.

++++++ Bill .

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Earth Day Prelude – Four

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, tagged Bill Griffin, Christina Baumis, David Radavich, Earth Day 2024, Earth Day Every Day, ecology, Ecopoetry, Jane Hirshfield, Katherine Mansfield, nature photography, nature poetry, Patricia Hooper on April 21, 2024| 5 Comments »

April 21, 2024

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

++++++ Song of Solomon 2:11-13

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I Open the Window

What I wanted

wasn’t to let in the wetness.

That can be mopped.

Nor the cold.

There are blankets.

What I wanted was

the siren, the thunder, the neighbor,

the fireworks, the dog’s bark.

Which of them didn’t matter?

Yes, this world is perfect,

all things as they are.

But I wanted

not to be

the one sleeping soundly, on a soft pillow,

clean sheets untroubled,

dreaming there still might be time,

while this everywhere crying

Jane Hirshfield

Shared by Debra Kaufman, Mebane, NC, who writes:

I love the subtlety in every poem by Jane Hirsfield. In her new, profound collection, The Asking, every poem is a kind of inquiry that allows readers to join her in generously observing the world and all its beings. She is never assuming, she investigates even the smallest of gestures or creatures, to stay open each day to possibilities, while still acknowledging the darkness.

++++++ Debra

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. . . the road is found in the persistent walking of it . . .

++++++ Jane Hirshfield

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

++++++ Edward Abbey

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Fall Changes

I left those three crows

the last corn in my garden,

and not one thanked me.

++++++ *

Bright August sunlight

but just north of the woodpile

a November wind.

++++++ *

September begins

with a vee of geese flying

and two fat, slow frogs.

++++++ *

All night fallen leaves

pile up under the maples—

old thoughts, cast away.

++++++ *

A ragged black glove

high in the oak’s bare branches

flies away, cawing.

++++++ *

Through the leafless hedge

a neighbor I’ve never met

waves from her window.

Patricia Hooper

Shared by David Radavich, Charlotte NC, who writes:

I greatly admire, Patricia Hooper; Fall Changes is from her book Wild Persistence. I love the quiet interactions in this poem between the human and the non-human natural worlds – so comfortable and easy, so assumed. The haiku portraits are subtly varied yet intimately linked, and the mere contemplation of trees and birds and frogs leads the witnesses to greet each other in friendly neighborliness even though they are strangers. This is a gentle masterpiece of evocative scene-painting.

The other poem is called New Emigrants from my book The Countries We Live In (Main Street Rag, 2012). This is a more incisive critique of climate change and human greed.

++++++ David

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New Emigrants

These maples have lived

here all their lives,

turned colors by the season,

offered shade, been

neighborly

on the edge of the city.

Who would have thought,

after all this time,

air could become

the enemy?

Earth has allied itself

with terrorists

who decry

the wickedness of weeds.

Water streams in

under cover of drought,

fire climbs

out with its fierce

fingers.

Now some are asking

whether it might be better

for the old limbs

to give place

to homes and people

and their saving chemicals.

Already I see wise ones

taking their leaves

north to where ice melts

into soft angels.

David Radavich, Charlotte, NC

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i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes.

++++++ e.e.cummings

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Voices of the Air

But then there comes that moment rare

When, for no cause that I can find,

The little voices of the air

Sound above all the sea and wind.

The sea and wind do then obey

And sighing, sighing double notes

Of double basses, content to play

A droning chord for the little throats—

The little throats that sing and rise

Up into the light with lovely ease

And a kind of magical, sweet surprise

To hear and know themselves for these—

For these little voices: the bee, the fly,

The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,

The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,

The shrill quick sound that the insect makes.

Katherine Mansfield

Shared by Tina Baumis, Goose Creek, SC, who writes:

Ms. Mansfield enlarged the smallest of movements and voices in a Georgia O’Keefe style, drawing us into the captivating moments she observed when drowning out the sea and wind. We too, can relate to the drone of the bigger sounds in our day to day lives and rediscover wonder, peace, and joy of nature when we allow ourselves time to immerse into nature’s voices. “The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks, The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,” are lines that speak to me.

I took a walk in the woods

and came out taller than the trees.++++++ Henry David Thoreau

This quotation elevates your spirits inspiring you to go outdoors to appreciate the magic we often overlook during our full days. Recharge. Serenity.

The California Urban Forest Council holds an annual haiku themed contest. I was fortunate to have my haiku listed on their Facebook pages. On February 17th, 2024, my haiku was posted. An attempt to evoke feelings as Mr. Thoreau’s quote.

++++++ Tina

positivity

gather under canopy

mood swings lift with breeze

Christina (Tina) Baumis

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We cannot be truly ourselves in any adequate manner without all our companion beings throughout the earth.

++++++ Thomas Berry

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Finally, the southwestern US is home to several species of scolecophidian blindsnakes in the genera Rena and Leptotyphlops. These are tiny and have undifferentiated body scales, meaning that all scale rows around the entire body (including the underside) are the same width. They are iridescent and extremely difficult to count, which has given rise to one of my all-time favorite quotes from a scientific paper: “We castigate the ancient lineage that begat Liotyphlops, for it is obviously the worst designed snake from which to obtain systematic data” (Dixon & Kofron 1983).

https://brill.com/view/journals/amre/4/2/article-p241_12.xml?language=en&body=contentSummary-44180

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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!

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