And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour....
-- William Blake
In the early nineteenth century, English artist and poet William Blake understood the importance of preserving, protecting, and caring for the natural world around us. On April 22, 1970, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson acted in the same spirit, organizing a one-day national event intended to encourage appreciation of our planet and to increase awareness of Earth's environmental issues. By 1990, Earth Day had gone global, growing into an international celebration that included over 140 countries around the world, and in 2009, the United Nations officially declared April 22 International Mother Earth Day. When we celebrate Earth Day tomorrow, we will join an Earth Day Network of more than 175 participating nations. As we prepare for Earth Day, let's declare that we are Poetry Paraders, not Plooters!
We Are Plooters
We don't care,
We make messes
Everywhere,
We strip forests
Bare of trees,
We dump garbage
In the seas.
We are Plooters,
We enjoy
Finding beauty
To destroy,
We intrude
Where creatures thrive,
Soon there's little
Left alive.
Underwater,
Underground,
Nothing's safe
When we're around,
We spew poisons
In the air,
We are Plooters,
We don't care.
-- Jack Prelutsky
Our next Earth Day poem, from R is for Rhyme: A Poetry Alphabet, is an ubi sunt, taken from the Latin phrase meaning, "Where are...?" An ubi sunt poem usually asks a series of thought-provoking questions, challenging us look at things in new ways and inspiring us to take action.
Extinction
And dodos and lava mice, too?
What happened to Tasmanian tigers?
I haven't seen them, have you?
Where did the passenger pigeons go,
That once populated the sky?
And where went the Yunnan box turtle?
Why did these creatures all die?
Will someday we ask where the whale is?
Will we wonder where rhinos once ran?
Will there be whooping cranes and bald eagles?
The answer depends upon man.
-- Judy Young
Will We Ever See?
stalking its prey with shining eyes?
Will we see the giant orangutan
inspecting its mate for fleas?
Or a California condor
feeding on the side of a hill?
Or a whooping crane
walking softly through a salty marsh?
Or hear the last of the blue whales
singing its sad song under the deep water?
-- Georgia Heard
Some communities extend Earth Day into Earth Week, planning seven days of environmental education and earth-friendly activities. But why stop at one day... or even one week? Let's make Every Day Earth Day.
Prayer for Earth
an owl
called from the hill.
Coyotes howled.
A deer stood still
nibbling at bushes far away.
The moon shone silver.
Let this stay.
Today
two noisy crows
flew by,
their shadows pasted to the sky.
The sun broke out
through clouds of gray.
An iris opened.
Let this stay.
-- Myra Cohn Livingston
No comments:
Post a Comment