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April 21, 2024
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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
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What I wanted
wasn’t to let in the wetness.
That can be mopped.
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Nor the cold.
There are blankets.
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What I wanted was
the siren, the thunder, the neighbor,
the fireworks, the dog’s bark.
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Which of them didn’t matter?
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Yes, this world is perfect,
all things as they are.
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But I wanted
not to be
the one sleeping soundly, on a soft pillow,
clean sheets untroubled,
dreaming there still might be time,
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while this everywhere crying
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Jane Hirshfield
from The Asking, Penguin/Random House, © 2023
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Shared by Debra Kaufman, Mebane, NC, who writes:
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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.
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++++++ Debra
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. . . the road is found in the persistent walking of it . . .
++++++ Jane Hirshfield
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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
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I left those three crows
the last corn in my garden,
and not one thanked me.
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++++++ *
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Bright August sunlight
but just north of the woodpile
a November wind.
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++++++ *
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September begins
with a vee of geese flying
and two fat, slow frogs.
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++++++ *
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All night fallen leaves
pile up under the maples—
old thoughts, cast away.
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++++++ *
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A ragged black glove
high in the oak’s bare branches
flies away, cawing.
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++++++ *
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Through the leafless hedge
a neighbor I’ve never met
waves from her window.
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Patricia Hooper
from Wild Persistence, University of Tampa Press, © 2019
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Shared by David Radavich, Charlotte NC, who writes:
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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.
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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.
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++++++ David
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New Emigrants
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These maples have lived
here all their lives,
.
turned colors by the season,
offered shade, been
neighborly
.
on the edge of the city.
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Who would have thought,
after all this time,
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air could become
the enemy?
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Earth has allied itself
with terrorists
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who decry
the wickedness of weeds.
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Water streams in
under cover of drought,
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fire climbs
out with its fierce
fingers.
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Now some are asking
whether it might be better
for the old limbs
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to give place
to homes and people
and their saving chemicals.
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Already I see wise ones
taking their leaves
north to where ice melts
into soft angels.
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David Radavich, Charlotte, NC
from The Countries We Live In, Main Street Rag Publishing, Charlotte NC © 2012
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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
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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.
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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—
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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—
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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.
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Katherine Mansfield
from Poems, London: Constable, © 1923 and New York: Alfred A. Knopf, © 1924
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Shared by Tina Baumis, Goose Creek, SC, who writes:
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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.
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I took a walk in the woods
and came out taller than the trees.++++++ Henry David Thoreau
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This quotation elevates your spirits inspiring you to go outdoors to appreciate the magic we often overlook during our full days. Recharge. Serenity.
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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
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positivity
gather under canopy
mood swings lift with breeze
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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).
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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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