Darkness on the Face of the Deep

It is not

the darkness

nor the Spirit

on the surface of the deep

that I fear, but the horror

of our wild consumption.

#nosecondearth #posterseries

First, Before All Else

 First,

before all else,

you must love her like your

mother.  Even, and especially,

before you try

to save her.

#nosecondearth #posterseries

Some Know

Poised above the word
to spread its ink
upon the page - I wait.

And nothing comes,
but a wrenching saddness
that the earth is rendered
too hot for civility
and kindness.

Blubber barreled as
life unfurls on the
tragic waves for man and
whale.

Utterance(s) like water
trickles over the
parched and heated
red shale rocks -

no
more.

And, the tadpole is
rendered dead,

sticking to what
had once been greenery
and sustenance for
it to nurse upon.

What sharp and heinous tilt
will hearts begin to take
as solid, baked earth ravines
yield nothing damp for
lushing undergrowth or fern.

And, all of them -
each their every - could
needs sense the arrival of the
departure.

But,
they
would not.

They chose themselves
that they would not bespeak
THE WORDS of telling their
demise or croak the ancient
fears they knew brewing
in the cauldons of their soul.

It had become
too hot; too warm
for grace and mercy to be
a thing of ease.  Harshness
now they had and would still be -

freedom lost for outcomes
once desired.

They say frogs
do not know the pot
is set to boil; if the
boil is set upon slowly
from the cold unto a roll.

I sense
that
some

must

know.

Peoples' Climate March Poems

Drafts of 3 Poem-Seeds for the Peoples Climate March...

My Bare Foot

I placed my

bare foot firmly

on the soil

of a planet that

longs for the

thinking ones

to think;

that yearns for

the clever ones

to wake up,

and take action

beyond their simple

speech.

Her ancient plates

and seismic shifts

move not on a

whim or

self involved

reflection of profit.

No market share

or stock options

are hers to garner

from her constant

attention

to the landscape

all about her and

within.

She is shaped

and pressed by

the forces of

all that touch

her

Burning All His Trees

How could we live

with ourselves if

the storms grew

worse for our children

and we did nothing

to bridle our apathy

and our greed.

A blanket cloud

of methane cannot

replace a cumulus.

A river

of polychlorinated biphenyls

cannot replace a spring.

We could loaf and

invite ourselves no more

to quench our deepest cataracts

on the cold, cold draught

of our hydration.

Like all the earth

a composite of water and dirt.

How could we live

knowing the stones we

gave our children –

as the asked for bread –

fell on them and

crushed them dead

or, at least impaired

them no more to

lean and loaf with Whitman?

The rocks have not

yet joined the cry of

dissidence and revolt;

the stones have not yet

thrown themselves

on the barons

and corporate moguls

whose tales and lies

have lolled us away

from finding the

trail to their pockets

well-lined with cash

and misinformation.

If a man knew

that burning all his trees

would kill the children

of his home,

would he not look

for a new way to heat

the rooms of his sons –

to light the rooms

of his daughters?

Could he knowingly

march toward the cliff

of his lemming demise with

no concern for the falling

save his own?

The shadow play

of rain upon the bark

has given me hope

a thousand thousand times.

The muffling stillness

of foot on loam

has caused me

endless pause to

listen beyond myself.

A Canyon of Woe

A canyon of woe

could not replace

the loamy soil

of home.

And yet, each day

I see the tracks

upon the land

that will surely

shatter the dank

and fertile coordinate

of our hope.

The moist dirt

below our feet.

I feel the trails

and hills in the

center of my me,

a tonic against

the mid-day

toil and focus on

my madly hauling

cash and acquisition –

a wall of ennui to

protect the bounty

of my greed.

How might we

then cope,

should we toxify the

very respite of our

toxification?

The words of a

dying earth do not

so easily find

themselves in verse.

It is not for the simple rhyming

that they are kept from being

penned. 

Toxification.

It’s very harshness cuts

words in two; lacerating one

good image upon the altar

of our poetic druidry and one

good sound upon the misty

morning grass of my

Glencoe prose.

Craning my neck to

assail my eyes with

the wonder of a mountain

climb, I know the

stakes of endlessly fossil

fueling ourselves to the

edge. We will fall –

as all tipping points –

in a whispered descent that

picks up speed.

Unrecognizable

at first. But,

oh too soon upon us, still.

I Know

I know you

can feel it –

the inner

twisted knot

that turns.

I know

you can

feel it

because

I do, too.

I know

you can

carve out the

words

to give voice

to it –

the dank

intermittent

horror

that you suppose.

I know

you can

carve them

because

I can, too.

It is really

more about

whether we

will allow

what is in there

to come up

and out.

I know you

have had it

eating at your

soul as you

sleep, work,

drive your car,

and look upon all

that is good

and sweet in your

children;

in the little

ones who have

not asked to

be born into

this slowly

eroding planet.

I know

it is eating

at your soul

because it eats

at my

soul, too.

But,

will you ever

let yourself

wail in public,

lament aloud

in your

temples, or

scream from

what is left of

the richness

of the soil

upon which

we all stand –

what we have

grown to

love as earth.

How can

you not;

how

can I not?

In the end

we must.

It is no longer

all about us,

it is about

all

that is good

and sweet in our

children.

This is
where we
stand;
this is
where we
undone
our earth
with 
greed.

It is

their home

we stand on,

now.

Let our shame
drive our
agility to
respond.

It is where
we must learn to
undo the climate
wrongs we have
done.

I know you
feel it;
I do, too.

It is

their home

we stand on,

now.
It is where
they must
learn to 

survive.

image from: www.astexhibits.com 

I Write an Earth that is Dying

I write an earth that is dying.

Dying at our hand; which

makes it murder and not so

much just death.

I write an earth that is dying.

Unable to adapt fast enough

to the changes we are making

and not so much because it is time.

I write an earth that is dying.

Most will never claim their

part in starving her of life

and choking her on greed.

I write an earth that is dying.

And, I am to blame.

Beauty in an Ark of Love

I will gather for you
bunches and bunches
of dandelions and poppies;
so we can save the seeds
and keep them safe
against the wiles of the
changing climate -
against the wiles of
greedy mankind and
our hearts of stone and crude.

I will gather for you
arm-fulls of daffodil and tulip
bulbs, shoots and tubers
that will become shooting-stars
and anemones, snowdrops and
bleeding heart, ginger and ginseng.

I will find a way to keep fiddle-heads
from drying out, and lotus seeds
from being smashed to dust.  I will
gather wintergreen and berries.  I will
shelter them in a safe place for you.

I will pull them close,
nursing them on the warmth
of my body; on the love
in my heart.  It is the least
I can do.  It is what I must do -
to keep beauty in your lives.

It is what I must do -
to help you keep
the hope of springtime
blossoms vibrant in your
heart that you will not
languish parched
by our wanton inability to keep
ourselves from making carbon
footprints instead of traces of
our soles in dirt and mud.

I will store beauty in
an ark of love so you may
remember; so you can help
your children to learn
the simple way of flowers
in the awakening of a soul
in the growing of a people.

Do not forget them, and try
if you are able, try to forgive us
for our wrongs against your lives
against the earth on which you stand.