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.

From the Belly of the Whale: Poems of the Male Soul

My latest volume of poems will be out in a few weeks.  It includes Yosemite at Fifty: The John Muir Poems. I am including one of the poems from the John Muir selection.  I am hoping to apply for a Guggenheim Fellowship this summer to work on a collection of poems on conservation and the endangered species of Yosemite.  These is such a need to bring awareness to a deeper level.  We need to feel the suffering of the earth and creation if we are to mobilize and change the way we live.

Reaching Out From the Chest

Everything in my chest

reaches out to bathe itself

in the chestnut colored loam;

strewn all about

with burnt and blackened

pieces of bark and wood.

I mingle with earth and

needles as if I am living from

the basement of my days.

My insides reach toward the

the forest floor that has

been asleep for the winter

of my adult life—building up

warmth and food for my soul

against a hollow detachment.

My wholeness is drawn out by

the heat of an age old woods;

by the heat of everyman’s

journey through these days

of finding a voice—finding

a central home in the me—one

of comfort and uncluttered

belonging to itself.

I find myself relaxed in my own

aging. Coming to myself like

a moist, sunlit bed of needles on

the dirt of thousands upon thousands

of aeons, and winters, flowering blooms

of gentle-life growth.

Cones pepper the view and

thick blankets of retreating snow

withdraw their reach to the bottom

of the hills; uncovering all that has

fallen and died since autumn; all

that is in there—that

I have forgotten until now.

My days have pulled in

a bit lately, retreating back

to the bottom of meaning

and the corrugated layers

of place and thing.

I find pieces of myself

scattered on the floor of my

life, and see wonder in the

ripening of passages

and aimless ambling turns.

The compost of my days is rich

with dank, wet, dark expression;

holding itself against the leaner times.

I have found more life in me

than I knew I had held.

The darkness holds no absence

it only hides the view. Flowers and

blooms for a future glory

lay dormant in the tubers

and roots of all life’s meandering

of imagination and place; of

time and space.

Standing on the remnants

of all that is past,

tenderness rises like the

scent of fresh dirt.

Tilled and open, it awaits

the planting of

the second half of life.

A raven sings this same song

from the other side of this vista.

I can hear it, but he escapes my view

Little Pieces of Paper

I would like
to write my poems
on little
pieces of paper and
hand them out
all around the world
to end violence, hatred,
and global warming.

I would like to
tend my gardens,

harvesting food and
flower to feed the hungry
and open the eyes
of the poor.

I would like to
sing songs that would
make people
cock their heads to
one side and wonder deeply
if "awe" was in
their blood.

A fox
leaves its path
silently in the drifting
snow
on a deserted hill

and only I have
been
a witness to its
straightness through
the powdered loam
and frozen air

before it is
covered by the night
wind.

In the moonlight
it all
just glistens.

from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Full_moon.jpeg