Welcome to Day 2 of the June Open Write. If you have written with us before, welcome back. If you are joining us for the first time, you are in the kind, capable hands of today’s host, so just read the prompt below and then, when you are ready, write in the comment section below. We do ask that if you write, in the spirit of reciprocity, you respond to three or more writers. To learn more about the Open Write, click here.
Our Host: Jennifer Guyor Jowett
I’m a poet! Who are you?
Are you – a poet – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Let’s tell! They’ll celebrate – you know.
Inspiration
One of the prevalent concerns my students have is climate change which creates an eco-anxiety amongst them. I began exploring ways students could confront their concerns through writing and landed in the world of ecopoetry, poems about ecology, environmental injustice, and climate change.
This exploration led to an essay written by Craig Santos Perez, a teacher and indigenous Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guam. He works to “highlight how poetry can communicate environmental issues through creative language and expressive form… and can put a human face and emotional experience on abstract natural disaster and climate crises.” I especially loved that the work he does “becomes a form of literary eco-activism.” One of his students stated, “Ecopoetry inspires us to act” and that inspires hope. (I’m sure Emily Dickinson would approve).
Process
- You might begin by listing what concerns you most about the environment.
- You might consider adding a collective noun as a way of connecting to the natural world.
- You might start as Perez suggests: reading and watching science journalism that focuses on the environment and annotating key words, facts, and descriptions to create a basis for your poem.
- You might take inspiration from a diversity of poets to reflect the biodiversity of our world.
- You might reflect upon the impact humans have on the environment, bringing an awareness that causes a desire to take action.
- You might consider writing your poem as a form of postscript
The form is up to you. As always, we invite you to write from your heart in whatever way offers hope or inspires you to act today.
Jennifer’s Poem
A Murder of Crows
the sky is full of crows
black shadows
slashing the air
leaving gashes behind
until
they land
picking pieces of straw
from the scarecrows
we’ve become
while
we hang limp
in the fields
watching over
the world we planted
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. For suggestions on how to comment with care. See this graphic.
I really appreciate the prompt this week and the idea of writing as an effective force for social change. I also wanted to share “The ‘Change’ in Climate Change” by Jacob Shores-Argüello, a poem about eco-anxiety I read recently and found especially powerful. My own poem is below.
If only our utility was a measure of caring–
if the eco anxiety hanging thick over our heads
could counteract greenhouse gasses
I mean to ask,
how can we package compassion into action
To plant ideas alongside new lawns of native grasses
We normalize paper straws but strike down stronger laws,
bring reusable forks and knives to grill out steak and hot dogs.
So far, we’ve got it all wrong.
So far, the people who’ve got it right don’t stand a chance against the man.
Even if they know how to fight,
they don’t stand a chance against the man.
So we seethe and grow and write
and sort out our metal cans.
Jennifer thank you for the fun prompt. So busy today only just now taking time to write. I couldn’t decide what to write about so I chose two unrelated Haikus.
Water 💦
Bright clear blue water
Bubbling up out of the ground
Will we see again
Bees 🐝
Bumble bees fly free
Zipping flower to flower
Let’s keep bees alive
DeAnna,
Haikus and nature go hand in hand! I particularly like your Bee one!
DeAnna, I’m so glad you found time to write today! Water and bees are such an important part of nature and the haiku honors that. I love the verbs you’ve chosen (bubbling and zipping) – the bring such life and energy.
DeAnna, your use of emojis and words of bubbling and zipping bring extra life to your words here. Thank you for sharing.
DeAnna, I love both of your poems. I like the suggestion at the end of your second stanza “let’s keep bees alive”. Yes, let’s!
Hello Jennifer, Thank you for your mentor poem, it was very vivid and visually stunning!
Land
Every year theirs more land,
They say it’s only a matter of time,
All of the resources are gone,
Everything stops on a dime.
We take everything for granted,
Gluttony at it’s best,
We use and use and use,
it’s never enough, we don’t rest.
Baby steps we take,
recycle, reuse, second hand,
paper straws, blue bins,
never enough, some take a stand.
Oceans are receding,
Fresh water is drying up,
Smog, the annoying neighbor,
Always hovering, asking . . . “Sup?”
Trash in the streets,
Landfills overflow,
Nowhere left to throw things,
We’re running out of places to go.
The past, changes cannot be made,
The future, has yet to be arranged,
Will it be around for our youth,
The mistakes we’ve made today,
What do we leave them with,
What price do they have to pay?
Maegan, gluttony- such a precise word for what we are doing and another deadly sin to pop up today. I’m particularly drawn to your line, “The future, has yet to be arranged.” There’s tremendous hope in those words.
Maegan, I like how you have used personification with dialogue in stanza four. Thank you for sharing with us today.
Jennifer,
Your mentor poem is stunning. Slashing/gashes, picking…straw…pieces, we hang limp…the world we have planted.
There is so much POWER in this poem, and your amazing word/sound choices drive it hard: slashing, indeed.
Do you ever send your poems out for publication? This one deserves many readers.
<3
Thank you, Allison! (I’ve really not done much beyond a contest entry). I find so many poems on our site that should be shared far and wide!
THANK YOU, Jennifer, for dipping us into Ecopoetry. I attended an online workshop earlier this year during which the Iowa Poet Laureate Deb Marquart challenged us to move away from a human>nature perspective. The idea was riveting to me, as traditional nature poetry celebrates the natural from a human>nature perspective. That is, we tend to appreciate nature from a position of dominance. I tried to dig into this a little with my poem tonight. The extension of man’s desire to control/dominate the natural world he/we feel “superior to” is to consider how we apply hierarchies within our human race. I’ll save that for another poem.
As a child of the ‘70s
I understand I am also
a child of the universe
no less than the moon and the stars
I have a right to be here.
Little bat
darting from under the sill
infinity in motion–
You too are the precious one
of Mother Universe.
You, too, have a right
to be here.
But not as much right
as my right,
you see.
Little bat
humankind has its hierarchies:
You matter more than
those mosquitoes
you devour by the thousands–
but probably less than
the wren, whose feathered
wings are of an angel,
not the devil’s
rubbery hairless ones.
Your right to be here supersedes
that of the mealworm
I’d say
and maybe even the nasty gar.
But chickens?
cattle?
dogs?
All have more right
than you
little bat
child of the universe
to be here.
Because I–
human child
who carries more self-awarded
right than
the moon
and the stars–
said so.
Ohhhh, Allison! You’ve got me thinking that we have this narrative of man>nature precisely because we cannot control it. Your poem is brilliant. It owns our superiority and mocks it simultaneously. I appreciate how you’ve got me thinking, about so many things, but especially on the hierarchy of the living world. It reminds me of the phrase, do no harm. No matter the living thing, we must do no harm.
You have my mind spinning, Allison, in a completely positive way. I know I should, but I don’t think enough about human’s position in relation to nature. Focusing on perspective in that dynamic is fascinating and you do it so well.
Allison,
While this has all the animals necessary for a good children’s story, it’s one of those that the parents actually see the subtext in. Well versed and so many truths spoken. May the imbalance of the universe be righted in our lifetimes!!
This made me chuckle but also made me as a human feel so arrogant! Yet, there is so much truth to your poem about the hierarchy set by humans and taught to us at an early age. Hard to think about carrying ourselves higher than the stars and moon, but we do!
I love this! When the form of address switched toward the bat, I got excited. What a great subject. It’s interesting to think about the bat as being both worthy of an explanation but also subject to condescension. A great way to get at the topic of our human superiority over nature, even when we think we’re appreciating it.
Jennifer, thank you for hosting today. I was very intrigued by the essay you shared and as much as I’m not a “sciency” person, I was appalled and shocked, yet highly interested. It’s amazing how much we DON’T realize the negative impact we have on our world. This crime committed by ourselves, how we sit and watch (“scarecrows… hang limp”) the world waste away because we waste…away (trash, electronic waste, toxins, oils, etc…). Such powerful words you shared. Thank you! Here’s my something. Just a free verse of rambling thoughts.
She’s Tired
How foolish can we be, thinking that our carbon footprint is just the latest brand name?
How careless can we be, tossing that bottle which could’ve been recycled but were too lazy to walk the extra 3 inches?
How reckless can we be, because “size matters”? The bigger the vehicle, the more noise it makes, and the more juice it leaks, the better.
How heartless can we be to see the coyotes emerge from what’s left of their homes? Trees cleared out, and animal and plant life decimated.
How greedy can we be? Flooding is inevitable now. All because the city council decided we needed another subdivision crammed in between two more subdivisions on a 1-acre lot (more or less, but definitely not enough) next to the middle school.
Oh, but we have walking and bike trails….which were created by destroying more of Mother Earth.
Oh, but we have public transportation to cut down on traffic…which is “hit or miss” and people just give up out of frustration.
Oh, but the roundabouts, we have completed number 33 now…but how many front yards and backyards did you lose to gain?
Oh, but what about the community gardens and nature trails…wait, how are people going to benefit from them when they are in the “richest” parts of the town?
Oh, but what about the animal shelter? You mean the one which still hasn’t been built while strays are being tossed and abandoned at an alarming rate?
How much more can Mother Earth take? Stripping her bare, leaving her naked and afraid. No leaves to cover up, no roots to grip ground, and no stalks to stand strong. Oh, but…we’ve run out of excuses. And now we’ve run out of time.
Jessica, your title is spot on. I’m tired. Just plain tired. Your form and the switching of the words after “how,” along with the Oh, but’s works so well to show the endlessness that creates that fatigue. I have to hope we have more time (though it’s alarming how quickly things are changing). I hope my hope can supersede my fatigue.
Jessica, your last stanza sums up so many elements of your poem and the visual is perfect (and the wit is not lost either). Thank you for sharing today.
I like the unifying of Mother Earth and the narrator as both just plain tired. Too tired to come up with answers or excuses–I love the “Oh, but…we’ve run out of excuses”). It’s hard not to give into resignation on this topic. Sometimes, we have to for a minute before we pick up and try again.
Father’s Day
By Mo Daley 6/18/23
My guy buys extra
parsley for caterpillars-
yellow swallowtails
Love him! (Mo, somehow when I signed up for today, I didn’t realize it would be father’s day and completely missed the opportunity to craft a poem celebrating this. I’m so glad you chose to write about yours today.)
Oh, I love this on so many levels. Your sense of sound (my guy buys…parsley caterpillars…yellow swallow) is a buffet of word treats–in a haiku, no less! Also, I love the frame your title invites. Mwaw!
This is why sometimes I love a good short poem 🙂 This really packs a punch, and the sounds are so nice to read, as Allison pointed out with the assonance and the L’s. Sometimes I have trouble getting the idea across to students that haikus should be as rich as a longer poem and should therefore be harder to write. This one portrays your father so sweetly while also connecting with nature.
Jennifer, I am in complete awe of your poem and your final stanza’s first line “we hang limp”. I feel the horror and atrocities that continue to cause me great consternation. My poem is a haiku sonnet that is an attempt to share my anger about the toxic horrors happening in my state.
Fertilizing Greed
river flies rise one
day and die the next, create
rotting carnage slicks
along river road
where pipelines flow beneath our
precious children’s toes
their toxic presence
is natural as pig shit
flowing into streams
with the toxins we
use to grow our GMOS-
feel the cancer grow
watch greedy men vote,
end pesticide bans and gloat
Barb Edler
18 June 2023
The title. Perfect.
Barb, this is so poignant and heartbreaking. I feel like our poems are speaking to one another w/ the image of slick “pig’s shit.” I’ve said more than once I feel as though I’m poisoning myself when I eat. That final couplet is perfection. I don’t understand these men he’ll bent on destroying the planet. It makes me so angry. Your poem is a gut punch. Perfection.
What a great form for your thoughts today. Your anger and frustration really come through in your carefully chosen words.
Oh my goodness! Your poem oozes with the toxic slime. I am really made aware with the visual of pig shit flowing into streams beneath our precious children’s toes. This poem is fantastic! I want to do a painting from it.
Barb, the word choices here are simply perfect to convey the muck and the mire, the carelessness and greed of this generation, the future consequences of today’s actions on our children, who are standing squarely in a place of danger. Your message is timely and toned to get attention! Billy Collins says to bring in a spider to our poems- – and you did it perfectly by bringing in a pig for this one!
Barb, you’ve captured the horror of this so perfectly, I found myself with an ewwww permanently mouthed throughout. These greedy men are so shortsighted (which is probably a trait of greed). They are indeed “fertilizing greed.” Your form choice works well to create the concise imagery, almost like a news segment where the images flash quickly into one compilation.
Barb, I LOVE the power of your final rhyming couplet.
Your use of form (haiku sonnet–which I’m now dying to research!) invites my appreciation of your word choice/message. “Natural as pig shit” is soooo good.
With my brain still filled with end of the year projects and papers, this is where my brain went. Thank you for the though provoking prompt. I love the imagery of crows and scarecrows in your poem–very apt.
My students
spent a lot of energy
this year
decrying the
“old white men”
in charge of the country
for,
really,
their whole lives
(and mine).
At the end of the year,
in well-researched portfolios,
they let loose
their personal perspectives
on the state of the world.
They wrote about
the plight of coral reefs,
the Japanese killing dolphins that hunt tuna,
and
the little things
ordinary people
can do to begin,
hopefully,
making a difference.
I learned from my students
with their passionate voices
and despite occasionally
having to rein in their vitriol,
I am proud of their determination.
I don’t know if we’re too late
to slow or
even stop
the damage humans have done,
but I have faith
in this young generation
of stubborn kids
to finally
make a difference.
Cara,
I relate very much to your poem. My student are quite similar to yours (as I am sure they are all over the country). They care so dang much but they struggle to voice their gripes in appropriate ways. I think they’ve seen poor models of argument and advocacy from many sources. I also worry how informed they truly are at times.
I love this stanza:
Amen!
Cara, this poem says as much about you as it does about your students. I love your willingness to learn from your students and consider the issues they are passionate about. I especially love your belief in your students.
Yes, Cara! I keep telling my students that I have hope because of their generation. They are so informed and are not buying into the BS from those making decisions. They see right through it. At the end of the year, they said they’d wished we could spend more time on actions they can take to improve the world. These kids need to band together (yours, mine, and more) and work on making a difference!
Cara, I love what you have expressed here. My hope for the world lies in the passionate students I teach. You nailed it.
Cara,
Your students are truly stubborn, maybe even stubborn enough to make the changes needed to help heal the years of abuse to our planet. Great poems today.
Great poem with such optimistic hope for the future. I loved the lines, “and / the little things / ordinary people / can do” because it’s about the little things and the big changes. Thanks for sharing, Cara.
Jennifer,
Great prompt! I loved that last stanza, even while it filled my heart with regret and sadness for what we’ve done to our world:
“we hang limp
in the fields
watching over
the world we planted”
Here is my effort for today. 🙂
“Wildfire”
Billow of clouds
Turns to smoke
Rain turns to ash
Yellow haze settles in
Over all
Pall of gray
Fills lungs
Masks back
As summer is cloaked
Sun kept at bay
Chill settles in
As Summer turns to Fall
And smoke smothers all.
Wendy, I so appreciate your focus. I almost wrote about the air quality today. You’ve capture the “pall” and horror the wildfires have created. Your last line is incredibly powerful “And smoke smothers all.” Fantastic poem!
Wendy,
You must be on the East Coast with Canada’s wildfire smoke. I’m sorry! Here on the West Coast, we’ve had some horrifically smoky summers with wildfires much closer–so I relate to the orange haze, falling ash, and stifling air. I like that the short phrases echoes the short breaths the smoke allows.
Cara, yes! This is our first experience with it, and it made me (finally!) empathize with what you on the West Coast have to suffer with regularly. 🙁
Wendy, the immensity of the wildfires in Canada are almost incomprehensible. I feel that these climate disasters need to be of utmost priority. All that you describe, we experienced in Michigan. And NPR’s segment on improving air quality in homes held the caveat of checking the air quality outside before opening your windows – how the heck is something more not being done? Your last two lines end this exactly as needed.
Hi, Jennifer! Love your introduction with the nod to Emily Dickinson 🙂Thank you for your prompt today. We do need to devote more effort to ecopoetry and taking care of our planet. In your poem, I appreciate the progression with the conjunctions signalling time, which help to strengthen the message.
We (my five and eight-year-old grandkids) have just created our poem as we wait for our flight at Cincinnati airport. Polina actively helped with rhymes and Misha added things he saw in the park yesterday.I had a minimal intrusion in the process.
Keeping Earth in Good Hands
Out in the park, under the sun,
Families gather for weekend fun.
Food, drinks, and laughter around,
The perfect spot for a picnic found.
When it’s time to pack up and go,
Trash left behind – a careless show.
Plastic bags, paper plates, and more,
All polluting the nature’s floor.
A simple thing we all can do,
To keep our planet clean and fair,
Pick up the wastes before we go,
Show the Earth, we really care.
June 18, 2023
6:27 p. m.
Oh, Leilya, I love you and your grandchildren’s poem. Your poem has such an important message. Fantastic collaboration!
Oh the conversations you must have had to inspire this collaboration! You have absolutely inspired my to try this with my 5-year-old grandson, who is so observant.This is lovely!
Leilya, what a fabulous way to spend time together writing – and thinking of the ways we learn values from family members. I love the poem you wrote together, and the thinking and feeling that went into the crafting of your lovely words.
Leilya, how beautiful that the three of you wrote this together! I can see all of you sitting in the terminal, with the hustle and chaos all around you, composing and creating, thinking and rhyming. And I love this. Please tell Polina and Misha what beautiful poets they are (we’ll celebrate – you know!).
Leilya, loved this compact, tight, vivid little poem with a reminder in it. Loved the rhyming couplets!
Thank you Jessica and Jennifer for the last two days prompts. I am sorry that today’s poem by me is a bit of a downer. I started reading about all our environmental issues and feel so, so helpless!
Our Own Doing
The enemy is upon us
and it is our own doing
Planet exploitation
environment degration
air, water, soil and land pollution.
How can we undo?
The enemy is upon us
It is our own doing
climate change
global warming
deforestation
greenhouse gasses
How can we undo?
The enemy is upon us
It is our own doing
genetic modification
household and industrial waste
acid rain
How can we undo?
I wail and cry
emotions at peak
unable to move
I wail and cry
worry about the future
unable to move
Won’t anybody listen?
Help! Help! Help!
I am right there with you, Susan! So many issues we have address with concrete actions; otherwise, we are leaving a planet in a disastrous state for our children and grandchildren.
Susan, you’ve captured so many issues and your poem reflects everything I feel as well. There are truly things we can do to improve our climate woes, but it feels as though it is totally out of control. I feel that petrified “freeze”.
Susan, your choice of first line (and its repetition), “the enemy is upon us” serves to state exactly where we are at. And your cry for help at the end – so many feel this way. I appreciate the bridge of the first and last lines that carry throughout the piece. I, too, wail and cry and feel unable to move.
Susan, I appreciated the juxtaposition of action and paralysis in here — it’s one that I often feel and see in others. The problems seems so overwhelming — can we even help at this point? Who do we even ask for help, and will our individual actions make a difference? Love your refrain: “How can we undo?”
Thank you for this prompt. I won’t be able to respond to other poet’s works today, as we are still without power after a wicked storm last night. Here it goes…
“Was quite the storm.”
The wind had sliced and diced
Trees and snapped poles
Into bite-sized sticks like celery.
‘Bad as the ‘07 ice storm,’
we agreed as we assessed
The damage and refused to
Follow the dog’s lead to press on.
Later I noticed the first fuchsia
blooms of the crape
Myrtle shouting hallelujah, and
I heard a robin’s tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk
In time to see him baptize himself
In the cement bird bath.
Hope your power will be restored soon, Katrina! Living in the gulf, I know too well the danger of storms and hurricanes. Stay safe and dry!
In your poem, I am caught in the final three lines with vivid imagery. Thank you for writing despite the nature’s outburst!
Ditto. Stay safe.
Katrina, I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with the aftermath of a storm. I understand how truly devastating those can be. I could truly relate to your lines: “Trees and snapped poles
Into bite-sized sticks like celery.” Hope you will be able to effectively deal with the damage.
Katrina, I’m so sorry you are without power caused by a storm. It sounds like it was pretty bad. I love that you end with nature poking through the devastation (which it always does) in bright blooms and the sound of the robin. The choice to end with his self baptism feels healing and hopeful.
Katrina,
Loved the hope in this piece and the idea of renewal. A lot of our poems were quite the opposite — how couldn’t they be? — but this one had a lovely, positive image at the end that reminded me how resilient nature is — it would be great if we helped instead of harming.
Jennifer,
Your poem sure takes the backdoor in to getting us thinking about our natural world. Your students are so lucky to have you guiding them in using words to process and advocate for the world around them.
Sentry
I left church today after communion.
I never do.
I walked out to the car to discover
I was locked out.
As I wait for the rest of the family,
I behold the maple tree,
standing sentry in the churchyard.
I’ve driven by it and parked near it
thousands of times.
I never paid much attention to it.
I stand under it.
I study it,
trying to distract by brain
from the emotions
I don’t want to feel.
I’m captivated.
It’s huge,
its trunk’s circumference big enough
for our family holding hands
to encompass.
About two feet from the base
of the tree,
the trunk splits
branching off into three smaller trunks
as if it’s three trees stemming
from one tree.
One tree
yet seemingly three other trees
emerging and extending skyward
from the one trunk.
A trinity of trees.
In the churchyard.
As I marvel at its massive
width and
breadth and
heighth,
the cars and trucks
on the highway
40 feet away
speed by
making me wonder
how much longer
the Trinity will stand sentry
giving a mom
the chance to marvel
and avoid emotions.
Making me wonder
how much longer
trees will thrive,
families will thrive,
churches will thrive,
I will thrive.
~Susan Ahlbrand
18 June 2023
Susan, I was completely pulled into your moment observing this amazing tree outside your church. You share your sense of wonder and suggest an inner turmoil at the same time which leads us to understand your powerful emotions at the end. Thriving is truly the thing that drives us, I believe, and more so than simply living. Powerful poem!
Susan, your poem so beautifully took us to the parking lot to view what you saw and to challenge us to take time to view and appreciate nature.
I particularly find the closing stanza powerful in the use of “church” term “Trinity” to remind us, too, that we are among the creators kept alive by that Trinity in the natural world and the spiritual sense. Great reminder any day of the week, but even more so on Sabbath. Thanks for sharing.
Susan, you take us into a freeze frame, a moment in time, a time capsule of observation and wonder. It makes me think of those books that show the Then and Now time lapses of 100 years. We have one of Atlanta, and it’s fascinating and horrifying all at once to imagine what will be right where we are standing in a century from the moment of our wondering. And churches. Already, the “old timey, gospel and hymnal and off-key piano churches,” the kind I grew up on, are falling by the wayside for metal buildings and multi-use buildings for churches of today. I, too, fear for the trees. The Lorax’s prophecy is coming true.
Susan, there is so much beauty in your trinity tree with its immensity and thought-provoking wonder. Yet, I return again to your first stanza and it’s importance in its placement first, to set the scene. Those short powerful I+verb statements hold much emotion. And the locking out seems important, symbolic, too. And having each of those last lines repeat with a subject shift, shows how we all connect within our struggle to survive.
Susan, I ran out of steam yesterday so I’m late reading and responding. Oh, what a beauty!
I pray that this poem gave you the same serenity and safety that it gave to me. I also hope you were not locked out of the car too long. I will remember to spend time marveling at the trees the next time I have emotions I don’t enjoy.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful experience.
Jennifer, today’s poem prompted me to write as my husband is driving. I had not paid close attention to the reason for the greyness we’re experiencing in the Great Lakes states this week till you invited us to write this Ecopoem. Reading the writing of our Native American authors has raised my awareness of what causes such imbalance!
Ecologically Thinking
Driving along the highway,
The sun’s clouded by gray
Reminds me of the way
Humans really have no say
Our actions have a consequence
When we think we can modulate natural law
Rerouting rivers and ignoring diversity
Producing foul weather, cramping and clouding our craw.
Everything depends on everything else.
Whether we accept that fact or not
Evidence of climate change
Shows us now what we’ve got.
We’ve got to live in harmony,
Rather than trying to sing solo.
The fires causing cloudy weather
Say, “How low will you go?
Why don’t you obey what you now know?
“Look out of the window.
The smoke-filled air is even clouding the cloud!
Get your act together, for crying out loud!”
Anna, the line “the smoke-filled air is even clouding the cloud” – such a powerful image. I was amazed, yet shouldn’t have been, at the air quality we’ve had in Michigan recently (our students were brought back from field days that last week because of it). Your message of living in harmony needs to be shouted far and wide! (Where is the photo from? It looks as if the river is drying up).
Anna, this poem expresses the EXACT same experience we’re having here in Los Angeles. We usually have somewhat grey May and gloom June but it’s been June for 4 months since the crazy incessant rains stopped. I am so much in love with the sunshine and when it peeks out for only an hour or so each day, I stop and enjoy it.
I love the critical message your poem delivers in each stanza. This is my favorite:
Thank you, Anna. ☀️
Thank you Jennifer, I am from Tennessee and I always think about the intensity and frequency of storms that are becoming more and more destructive with climate change. I remembered an experience from my childhood when 2 dozen tornadoes touched down in my hometown in one day and it was considered a wildly unexpected, once in a lifetime event.
9 years old
It’s not a drill
In the basement
In the dark
We huddled together in the position
We had practiced so many times.
The siren screaming so many times
We spent the day down there, with teachers calming, reassuring, exchanging glances
Driving home was a movie, gray funnels in the distance
The sky a peculiar green as though it might be sick
My mother, driving in silence.
MY sisters and I, silent, watching the windows.
Was my mother was wondering if we had a house to return to?
We did. Back to the basement,
Listening to the wind and the nervous beating in our chests.
What do you call a group of tornadoes?
A herd, a fleet, a battery?
When we emerged, they sighed.
“Once in a lifetime” they said.
“Never so many at once” they said.
35 years old
What happened to once in a lifetime?
The earth is too warm,
the air is too dry, the oceans are churning and
the storms keep coming.
We emerge, we rebuild, we bury the dead.
How big can the storm get before we stop rebuilding
and then where will we go?
Sarah, your poem evokes so many scary times for us kids and teens, now as parents and/or teachers. Depending on when and where we lived in the country, the “drills” were for different purposes: fire drills, bomb drills, earthquake drills, and not gun security drills. Now, how do we “drill” for climate change? Questions, Questions, Questions?
Well that’s one of the powers of poetry. It gets us thinking. Thanks for sharing.
Sarah B, I’ve just returned from Kentucky today – I’ve been driving all day, and over the weekend heard a similar story about the recent tornadoes that ripped through, leaving widespread destruction. Your memory from childhood, as you say, is becoming all too frequently the current reality. I have never seen that yellow/green/gray sky that looks like a constipated wicked witch of the west, but I hear it’ll scare you beyond your worst nightmare, and I hear this in your poem.
I love that image of a constipated witch!! Now I live in Michigan and tornadoes are not so frequent. My heart breaks when I see whole towns decimated. It doesn’t seem like we’ll be able to keep up with it eventually.
Sarah, I remember that sickly green (I love how you describe it as if the sky might be sick) from a night when a tornado hit not too far from where we live. I know if I ever see that color again, it will trigger me to immediately take shelter whether alarms are sounding or not. It’s amazing that the school let you out when funnels could still be seen (that wouldn’t happen today). I can’t even imagine 2 dozen tornadoes!
Sarah B. How scary! I can’t even imagine as a child what this must have been like, but your poem describes it so well! “The Earth is too warm, the air is too dry,” that’s so vivid! I’ve only ever experienced a tornado once in my life and you encompassed all of the feelings! Very well written!
Jennifer,
Love the prompt. The imagery in your poem is stark and foreboding. Excellent turn of having humans as scarecrows. I’m a huge Craig Perez fan and taught his poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier” to creative writing students during my long-term sub job in May. I also included it in one of my NCTE presentations last fall. My poem today is inspired by a book I read a few months ago via The Climate Solutions Book Club.
Majority Rule
humans outnumber
animals eight to one.
add in domesticated
critters—mostly cows & pigs—
the number rises to
twenty-two to one.
we drive extinction like
an asteroid veering toward earth
so to yank the precipice-poised
ones from the brink we created
conservation-reliant species,
the Patty Hearst incarnations of
“Stockholm Species” dominated &
dependent on their captors.
thus we have fulfilled the biblical
exhortation to have dominion over
the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, &
over every living thing that moves on earth.
*Elizabeth Kolbert uses the term “Stockholm Species” in her book “Under a White Sky.”
Glenda, wow, your poem is explosive with powerful details that show the impending horror of our human drive to extinction. I was especially moved by your lines “we drive extinction like/ an asteroid veering toward earth”. This creates such a vivid image and one I think all can relate to. The “Stockholm Species” is particularly provocative. I’m going to have to put Kolbert’s book on my “to-read” list. Thank you for sharing such an insightful and compelling poem to illustrate the truth of why we are in such a climate catastrophe.
Glenda, this resonates with me and brings about the fear of our misguided dominance, our sheer attempt to control the giant chess board of life without full knowledge of the rules of the game and the generations of moves ahead of us. I have learned this new term today – the Stockholm Species – and what a concept! We are going to be our own downfall, arent’ we?
Glenda, I cannot stop thinking of animals as “Stockholm Species.” Your connection to the biblical dominion is especially impactful. I appreciate the learning I’m gathering from your words today and how it’s pushing me to think in a different direction. And I will have to take a look at Perez’s poem “Thirteen Ways…” Great stuff here!
Glenda, wow your poem cuts straight to the point! You definitely don’t beat around the bush with this one! I loved all the technical terms, I felt like I was reading a poem from a professional poet! I read it as if we as man are taking control of everything on this Earth, and that might not be the best thing, very well done!
Clear Heaven
The sky, so magnificent, so many shades of blue.
From below, it appears so far away
yet when you’re up there, in flight,
you may reach your arms out, like a child
to touch it.
Its expansive and continues to seem
never ending, superior to when
Bessie Coleman, Amelia, and The Wright
Brothers took flight,
when their sense of adventure had to
outweigh their fear of the unknown.
Airplanes were invented, I think, to
show humans the expanse of the sky
along with the size of the ocean, and mountains,
the shapes of the clouds, the layout of the
land below so we can imagine ourselves
floating, dreaming, reaching towards, and
imagining our destiny.
Seana Hurd-Wright
Seana, a clear heaven is a beautiful image, especially one that might be reached with arms out (like a child’s). I imagine a child reaching up, too, for a parent, a loved one. There’s that sense of adventure without fear that children have too. Your words are soothing and thoughtful. Much appreciated today, also.
Seana, as we live in the flight path of planes going back to LAX, I often feel the sadness of all that they’re emitting into our beautiful skies each day. I will never forget my elderly neighbor who swept the leaves from her path by her door and fussed that the airplanes shake the leaves right off their limbs.
Your poem is a beautiful reminder to me to look up and enjoy even when I’m on the ground wishing I were on a plane headed to someplace beautiful.
Happy Summer, my friend!
Thank you, Jennifer, for hosting us today. I agree with my fellow poets; climate change is a huge topic among the students of my middle school. Sadly, my brain couldn’t create a poem about this important topic. Instead, I’ve been consumed with a lesson I learned from a 12 year old this week. We were chatting about our religions (she is Muslim and I am Christian) and the similarities and differences. We came to the agreement that religions build walls made of various elements. High walls. Thick walls. She looked at me so sadly and said, “I know they build walls, but they don’t build windows”. Thus, my poem for today.
Truths and Walls
I believe
that before recorded history,
God dropped nuggets of different Truths
throughout the world.
Recognizing
a Truth,
people built religions
around them.
Most built
mighty walls around
this Truth,
made up of rules and rites.
People felt safe
within these walls
because they felt
they ‘belonged’.
These religions,
knowing they were based
upon a Truth,
would fiercely defend it.
. . . and just as fiercely
they would
fight and condemn
other religions as heretical.
We call the Creator
different names
which is okay
with me
We have different
walls, made of
different rites and rituals,
which is also okay with me
The wise one would,
in my opinion,
seek the nugget of Truth
in each religion.
Yes, religions all
build walls,
man-made, resolute, and fossilized.
I just wish they built windows as well.
Judi Opager
Judi, I am so glad you went with what your heart told you to write today. I teach a religion class and one of our first units is on monotheism and how Christianity, Judasim, and Islam have more in common than they have that’s different. I love the idea of Truths dropped around the world. I have a wish for those windows too.
Judi, thank you so much for sharing your conversation with your student. Yes, it would be lovely to build windows rather than walls. Your poem is deeply moving. Thank you.
Hello Judi, your perspective on religion is so profound! At the end I was genuinely taken back! How wise to wish for windows as well, how much better would that make life if we had windows in our walls in regards to everything?! I love your take on religion being man-made, even though I am religious myself, it’s refreshing to hear this take on it.
Thank you for the idea and for your poem. I see/hear darkness, desolation, and hopelessness. I’m traveling through the southwest on vacation and there are no signs of water. The prompt had me writing a few ideas, but I decided to be playful and make a Dr. Seuss kinda thing, i don’t know. I also removed a lot of punctuation like one of my favorites, Cormac McCarthy.
Come round here kiddos
And listen up
As i tell you the story of how the rivers dried up
The man was tired
and his back was a breakin
So he got to work on some machine a makin
These machines they clanked
and banged and tooted
They left the nearby all black and sooted
The work was getting done
and the man he grew proud
He was sure that his choices were best for the crowd
Then he had an idea,
why use my own feet?
He put wheels on machines and laid down some streets
He moved to the east
he moved to the west
He told himself again and again this was best
His time was now his
but his spirits they lowed
He needed a way to have machines in his home
He used science this time
and came up with a way
To light up his home at night just like day
The people they cheered
they screamed
and the bellowed
That the man with machines was indeed a good fellow
For the people had time
they could read
they could learn
They were creating new ways that their time could be burned
Who cares that machines spew out terrible waste
Who cares that the water has a terrible taste
Are there enough machines?
Lets make more, more, more, more
Are there enough people?
Let’s make more, more, more, more
The number of folks and machines wouldn’t stop
So they didn’t notice how the whole place got hot
Heat from machines that spew in the air
Heat from machines zipping here and there
Heat from machines they plugged into sockets
Heat from machines they put into their pockets
Oh the weather is turning hot
they would say
As the sat in a room cooled by machines all day
They didn’t pay attention
til it was too late
That the water was not so high in the lakes
The water was barely a trickle in the river
And the creek behind the house? Not a sliver
Where has the water gone, machine man
What am i supposed to use in this can?
The man should have to fix this for us
He made it this way when he took all our trust
What? He’s dead?
Well when did he die?
He lived to the age of one hundred and five?
So we don’t live forever
is what you’re trying to say?
And maybe we leave this world better than we came?
Well what do we do now that there’s no water?
No one knows?
Mike, I needed this bit of levity (from the rhyme and rhythm and Dr. Seussian playfulness) in between the dark and sombre. Thank you for that! You managed to create a lighter view while still tackling the heaviness – no easy feat! An honoring Cormac in your removal of punctuation feels right too.
Jennifer — Thank you for your prompt. This is such an important topic. I just learned that climate change is causing increased Northern migration of wildlife which is straining the ecosystems of animals that live in northern habitats. Additionally, the heated earth is a perfect environment for pathogens.
And the Earth sweats tears
Toxins befoul air, a world stripped bare
From heated core, a slow simmer
From slogging oceans, habitats blink dimmer
Ice melts and the Earth sweats tears of regret
Heat scorches and burns
Orange flames crawl up furnace stacks, unfurls, belches, fetid breath.
Wildlife chokes and scatters
Death unharnessed.
Heat scorches and burns
To cooler climes, winged and hoofed flee
with heat on pinions and heels
But the heat burns faster, no escaping disaster
Forest moves into tundra
Life cycles shorten
From the heat, pests and pathogens emerge
Nothing remains to temper the scourge
And the Earth sweats tears of regret
Tammi, that action of sweating tears by the Earth, as a result of us, combined with the heat and fires – phew! What a complex image, yet one so natural and common (both the sweating and the tears). I fear for the animals who have not brought this upon themselves. I saw a pika once a long time ago on a vacation and the rangers spoke of its small elevation of habitat. Even then, before what we know now, I worried for it.
Tammi, first this phrase “And the Earth sweats/tears” is stunning. The first time it is toxins and the the last –and isn’t it really the last–is regret. Wow.
Wow, Tammi, I love how effectively your poem flows all the while showing the horrors of the toxins and environmental issues and disasters our world is suffering from. I especially appreciated your line “And the Earth sweats tears”, and I thought opening and closing on this line was particularly effective.
Hey, Jennifer, thank you for this invitation. Next year I’m teaching a collection of poems, and I read Museum the other day in preparation. It made me think about my things that will outlive me. Your poem’s last line “the world we planted” is so haunting because of its truth. Thank you for sharing.
Inspired by Szymborska’s poem Museum
Picnic Ruins
Long live the metal cutlery,
the gallon-sized Ziploc baggies,
and translucent tupperware lids.
This basket, the one I use
to tote around precious vittles
and plastic, is woven so tightly
that it will likely
be a displayed artifact,
showcasing its longevity.
The photos I snap will
be merely memories
(if I’m lucky)
while the iPhone remains
dead, buried, bulky but
fully intact.
Archeologists will dig up
the champagne
flutes and deem it
a relic of celebration.
Long after I have passed, the
red and white gingham cloth
will wave the flag of victory.
Rachelle,
Lately, I’ve been trying to make an effort to reuse and purchase less disposable items, like plastic, so your poem really rings true for me. It is sad that the plastic and hardware we leave behind will likely be our legacy. Hopefully, by spreading awareness and alternatives, we can change the course.
Rachelle, what a thought-provoking inspiration – what things will outlive us. I hear your concern about that
This disturbs me so very much, too! The image of the ‘red and white gingham cloth’ cheering on its ‘win’ at surviving longer is also disturbing – yikes. We really need to have better ‘items’ for longevity.
Ooohhh! That gingham red and white victory flag – what an image drawing from the past (quaint and simplified) to what we toss into the future. Each item you add, from the metal cutlery to the champagne flutes is a study in what we deemed important (or not so from the tossing after consumption). And to center the consumption around picnics is brilliant.
Rachelle, such an idea–to write about what will outlive us–and looking forward to hearing more about the poem collection you are curating.
This poem is lovely and a little haunting for me. “Precious vittles” and “iPhone remains” and “gingham cloth” are phrases I am saying over and over for the feel of it. Thank you.
This really brought to my attention about how the one time use plastics are here to stay – forever! Why is it in California they are outlawed yet we still see and use them? Love your gingham flag of victory!
Rachelle,
Despite my efforts of many years to reduce, reuse, recycle, the planned obsolescence of the products of today do their best to foil me. Your poem reminds me of a Ray Bradbury short story (“There Will Come Soft Rains”) where the house lives on without the people after the world comes to ruin. As your poem depicts, what will our remains show of us? Wonderfully done.
Rachelle,
You have done an amazing job reminding me that my efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle are not a waste of time and I can even step it up to do better.
Jennifer, your poem was magnificent – we are scarecrows, hanging limp. Your inspiration sent me down a wonderful rabbit hole, reading Craig Santos Perez’s writing and other ecopoetry. Then I mused awhile in my backyard, in Silver Spring, Maryland … landing here:
ill-timed
look about
brilliant blue hydrangeas burst forth
bright orange daylilies trumpet
Black-eyed Susans lazily open one eye
look about
the green peppers and tomatoes
are eager to be picked
look about
local peaches for sale
at the farmer’s market
I don’t know whether
to celebrate
or mourn
what once was August’s
bounty
look about
kudzu, bindweed, and porcelain berry
made a solemn promise in dark of night
to work together and
enshroud the natural world
thick winding webbed resistance
a creeping vine of a scream
wake up, fools!
you are going to lose everything!
look about
look about
look about
The echo of “look about” and all the wonderful images pulled me right in to your poem. I am ready to look about and wake up.
Maureen, thank you for sharing a glimpse into your garden, and a snippet into your thoughts. This stanza stuck out to me today, “I don’t know whether / to celebrate / or mourn / what once was August’s / bounty”. The transition from such rich, ethereal imagery to a more sinister tone at the end was done so well.
Maureen,
I agree! We really need to wake up and look about to see the beauty around us and to realize it could all be gone.
Love the image in this stanza:
“brilliant blue hydrangeas burst forth
bright orange daylilies trumpet
Black-eyed Susans lazily open one eye”
Maureen, your repetition of “look about” feels like a chant (funereal or mantra). I saw so much hope in your first stanzas (and love the one eye on the Black-eyed Susan lazily opening – such a beautiful image). And then we have that “creeping vine of a scream.” Doesn’t it just feel like that. I am working hard to create your first few stanzas in my yard – slowly turning the leftover, neglected areas into what will hopefully draw an abundance of bees and butterflies. I have hope!
Maureen,
I love the repetition of “look about.” As I read I thought about how early it is for all these veggies, and then these lines:
“I don’t know whether
to celebrate
or mourn
what once was August’s
bounty”
We really do need to pay more attention to what we see right before our eyes.
Maureen, I love all of the precise images of your poem that lead to your shout for everyone to wake up. Your final repetition of “look about” really adds a chilling impact. There is something frightening about how some weeds can take over.
Maureen, those invasive species you mention here, choking everything out right in front of our eyes, even as we must be reminded to wake up and look about – those repeating words and phrases that try to snap our awareness of what is going on around us are so vitally important. Kudzu, particularly, is no joke – – you can practically watch it grow. Cogongrass, Chinese Wisteria, all of these things that seem to be so beautiful are so detrimental, and I love the Look About reminder to stay aware and be educated on what is at stake.
Hi, Jennifer! Thank you for this prompt offering us time to reflect and write about our environment. I need to do this more with my students and get them into eco-activism. The sorrow is heavy here:
I decided to go with a nonet about a childhood memory. My sister and I literally thought we could reach China if we never stopped digging at the beach. The things we children believed! 😂
Stacey, the first hurricane in my memory is Hurricane Camille that devastated the Gulf coast where my siblings and I would build sand castles undisturbed by anything more than a little crab or seashell. After Camille, the beach was never again the same…ever. That was 1969. I’m sure we believed the same myth of digging to China.
Stacey, thank you for sharing this snapshot into your memories. The juxtaposition between the “oily black residue” and the “blue and / clean” waves emphasizes the negative consequences of mankind’s impact on the earth.
I, too, tried to dig toward China – a sweet childhood memory. But, wow, what we’ve done to beaches in the ensuing years. So disturbing to think of the ‘oily black residue/ or smashed plastic bottles” – which are ubiquitous on many beaches now. I love the visual of your nonet on the picture of the beach – fabulous!
Stacey, we should have combined our efforts – we’d have made it to China for sure. I can picture the two of you alongside my sister and I digging furiously! I love that the shape of your poem narrows down to the singular word clean – it’s something to aim for!
Stacey,
What I like best about this poem is the inherent innocence, the absence of the plastic bottle, an echo of a time plastic was not ubiquitous. I’m dreaming of a return to those days.
Imagine a deep
deep blue a vast
all-encompassing
blueness, the
color of serenity
of peace of whatever
heaven you believe in
or not, know that no
color wheel, no description
could match the deep
wonder of this blue
that you see before you
all attempts to categorize
to quantify to analyze
this beautiful hue will
pale in comparison to
its value its worth
and then picture
(like a tumbleweed
in a spaghetti western)
a lone 20 oz plastic
bottle gently bobbing
along with the current
close-up of the harsh
red label and the registered
trademarked Spencerian script:
Coca-Cola
then cut to two majestic
orcas swimming by
“Did you get a chance
to read that hit piece
in The Atlantic?”
“Garbage. Total garbage.”
“Agreed. Flotsam AND
jetsam.”
“People are dumb.”
“‘People are bloody
ignorant apes.’”
“Yeah, great, that’s
all we need in the
next article: Orcas
attacked another
yacht of some entitled
millionaire who swore
he heard one of them
quoting Samuel Beckett.”
________________________________________________________
Thank you for this prompt today, Jennifer! Your mentor poem was very powerful. We have, indeed, become “limp” and ineffectual “scarecrows” simply “watching over / the world we[‘ve] planted,” haven’t we? (Oh, and I loved your poet’s bio, too!)
Scott, that first stanza calls to mind the art installation at the 9/11 museum in NYC (Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on that September Morning). Yours feels like a reminder of what we had before we lost it. The brief glimpse of the cola bottle interrupts; it’s a displacement, an out of placement for what should be. And the orca conversation with the pithy dialogue – how are they so much smarter than we? (Go, orcas, go).
Scott, thank you for sharing this. Giving this perspective of the infamous(?) orcas was a pleasure to read actually, ““People are dumb.””
Scott — The juxtaposition between the beautiful blue ocean and the garbage “a lone 20 oz plastic/bottle gently bobbing/ along with the current” was startling and effective.
I agree “people bloody ignorant apes.” I wish people would be better stewards of our world. Love the ending and irony of the millionaire quoting Beckett.
Scott, I really like the long run-on thinking with minimal punctuation in your opening stanza – it added this meditative sensation to my reading aloud of your poem, and then – wham! that contrast of an image, all too familiar and realistic –
Scott,
You continue to dazzle with your brilliance! Like Jennifer, I was taken to the Remember the Color of the Sky on that September Morning with your incredible description of the water. And then the shift to the Coke bottle that you describe so cleverly.
And, of course, the orcas.
Clap, clap!
Scott, your poem really does have a cinematic quality – the descent into the serene blue, too blue for words, only to realize it’s the sea, the mention of the TV tumbleweed setting the stage for the close-up of bobbing Coca-Cola bottle’s “harsh red label” and distinctive script, the actual directive to “cut to’ the orcas…utterly and completely visual. Then the dialogue!! Orcas trashing The Atlantic – I presume they read the recent article “Killer Whales are Not Our Friends,” about orcas ramming boats as ‘cetacen vengeance’-?! In which case these wise orcas have a right to respond as they do with the ignorant apes line from Godot (actually, the whole poem scene feels Godot-esque…). All I can say is – blue heaven help us all for proving these orcas and Beckett right. Your poem is a pure delight to read, every single line – and the message, the subtext, so deep. -No pun intended, honest!
P.S.Thanks so much for the Bruchac reference in your comment – on my way over to read of the toads now!
These gases did not come naturally but by an act-ive system of gathering.
In 3000 BC, Crete dug holes into the earth to dump human refuse.
In 1937, Fresno, C-A filled land in sanitary ways, trenching,
compacting, covering our waste with soil, Crete’s
left over earth. Today, the greatest garbage
patch is in our Pacific, a trash vortex,
spinning once pristine waters into
a plastics soup aided by
photodegradation–waste
rising as gas into the
clouds that shade our
picnics. Shall we
gather at the hole,
dine at the
trench, swim
at the patch?
It’s right
around
the
corner.
Whoa, Sarah, what a beautiful form for this speeding train of climate change. Yikes. I was learning so much about waste and pollution and then all of a sudden the horror of the thought of gathering, dining and swimming here and how we won’t have a choice not to. Masterful piece.
Sarah, I am struck by the shape of your poem – the vortex swirling as if everything is heading right down the drain. What a powerful visual to represent this message. Your wording of plastics soup is one that should be coined. Thinking of those plastic-gas clouds shading picnics (as opposed to the synthetics we shade ourselves with and how they are really one and the same) and swimming in the soup patch should be a powerful deterrent.
Sarah, the shape of this poem reminds me of a tornado or a waterspout spinning out of control and taking all that is good and pure with it. “rising as gas into the clouds that shade our picnics” packs a punch.
Sarah, I love everything about this poem — from its shape, this spinning vortex, to the history (“Crete dug holes into the earth to dump human refuse”) to the inevitable (?) end “right / around / the / corner,” where we “gather at the hole, / dine at the / trench.” You are so right, this is not some “new” problem: “the greatest garbage / patch … in our Pacific” did not just appear out of nowhere. It is an accumulation. Ugh. [So as to not end this comment on such a down “note,” let me just reiterate how cool this poem is and cap it off with a Smiling Face emoji 🙂 ]
Sarah, this is so frightening and foreseeable. I, too, played with my words being in a vortex – it seems a perfect visual for these disturbing ecopoems. For yours about the trash vortex – wow, it is spot on. These lines are powerful and absolutely chilling,
Sarah — I also love the shape of your poem. It feels like I am being sucked into a funnel cloud and your words “it’s right around the corner” create a sense of urgency to fix the problem man has created.
That plastic soup trash vortex swimming invitation is just the image of our lack of respect for the earth and its waters, our lack of concern for wildlife and future generations all affected by our choices today. I like the way your poem takes the shape of a vortex, too, driving home the meaning of the gases and cycles of waste.
Jennifer, on my you have become such a poet. One I look forward to reading to see your insights and rich use of language. The “murder of crows” and the topic of climate change is rich. The image of the would-be caretakers becoming scarecrows is heartbreaking. I am on a road trip on the west coast of the U.S. Everywhere we turn we see monuments and museums describing the genocide of indigenous peoples.
Early lakes and forests
Of the west coast
Barren of white settlers
were Kept by
The Pomo
The Patwin
The Wiyot
The Wintu
The Yana
The Yahi
The Chumash
The Chowchilla
The…The…The…The…
Working and Caring for Earth
The same earth
Lewis and Clarked in the
19th century
White Supremacy’s
Manifest Destiny
Mutilated the Lands
The Rivers
The Forests
The Glades
The Mountains
And in the ultimate
Sacrifice of Life
Massacred
The Caretakers
Oh, Denise. That massacre-ing of The Caretakers is heart-breaking. Your contrast of the two worlds, the two visions, within the separated stanzas is seen in the naming of the indigenous peoples and their working, caring, keeping as opposed to the mutilation and sacrifice. The verbization of Lewis and Clark puts emphasis on their actions and holds them accountable too.
Denise, lots to awe over in this poem. After the list, the line “The…The…The…The…” and those ellipses of absence is just powerful and humbly. The tone there is intense. And then that turn “Lewis and Clarked” the active verb, the action, the responsibility in that phrase. Wow.
Sarah
The Pomo, Patwin, Wiyot, Wintu, Yana, Yahi, Chumash, Chowchilla…Say their names. Heartbreaking. Powerful poem, Denise.
Denise, how difficult and important it is to write into what you are seeing, monuments & museums describing the genocide of indigenous peoples. Thank you for this poem. To think that they worked and cared for the earth, and then massacred, it is so horrible. I was not taught “White Supremacy’s/Manifest Destiny,” I was not taught about the mutilation and horrors. So much relearning to do, so many amends to make, so little time.
Denise,
Your voice has become so strong a yawp for social justice, and I live that. I don’t know any single white woman speaking so strongly for those who have been so egregiously wronged. Excellent poem. It gets better w/ each line, and then that culminating four lines really packs a punch.
Thank you for the reminder of how closely climate change is tied to racism and colonization. Reading the names of the Caretakers gives a sense of identity and power and pride and then the second stanza reminds us of the damage caused that we are living with today.
Denise, thank you for this powerful poem! The “Lewis and Clark[ing]” of this “same earth” that was previously “[w]ork[ed] and [c]ar[ed] for” is so true (and so heartbreaking)! And I love your deliberate capitalizations throughout! So good!
Denise, your use of capitals here sets off your short but mighty lines masterfully, reiterating the dignity of indigenous people and the inhumanity done to them. I am not sure any echo I’ve read strikes so deep as your simple repetition of “The…The…The…The..” leading to the Caretakers of the Earth and their massacre. Habitat and ecosystem loss is to be mourned, surely… so much more the Caretakers who could have taught us so, so much. Again – your words strike so deep. As they should!
Denise, this is what I think of so often, wondering how anything ever became “ours” to do with as we choose, these “property lines” of yours and mine, his and hers, theirs and ours. We sure wrecked a good thing. The Native Americans had it so right – living in harmony with the earth as the web of life. There was a simpler day, when things were once as they were meant to be. You remind us of the sacredness of earth today. We bungled this one bigtime.
Thank you, Jennifer, for the time to reflect on nature and build some ecopoetry. Since it’s Father’s Day, and I have had a difficult relationship with my 97 year-old dad, I thought I’d write about him, and me, and the sea.
Father’s Day
My father loves the sea
The sailboats, the salty wind.
He loved the wide expanse
And the chance for possibility.
Early mornings, we would walk
Along the sandy shoreline.
I would eagerly chase the
Hungry gulls and quick sandpipers.
We would sit on the sand
looking out into the horizon,
The clouds hanging in soft clusters,
the sky so June blue.
We would dash into the waves
together holding hands
and shrieking at the cold.
We were connected by the sea.
My father would swim far out.
I’d hold on to his back
like a little fish.
He was the great whale.
He’d plunge down into the deep.
I’d clutch his neck and hold my breath.
We’d surface, laughing –
His tan face smiling.
We were together by the sea –
Father and daughter,
great whale and little fish
playing in the Atlantic.
My father loves the sea
A chance for possibility.
“So June blue” – I adore this, it’s softness and soothingness. I am now imagining every month as a color. The connection you have to your father through the sea and the image of you as the little fish upon the back of the great whale is wonderful. And the later phrase “together by the sea” reshapes itself when we place together with the verb (were together) or with the prepositional phrase (together by the sea). Love that last couplet too!
Oh, Joanne, what a sweet connection you have and always will have with your father. I love the picture you paint of his tanned face, the laughing, you the little fish and him the whale. What a lovely tribute poem this day.
Thank you for sharing, wordancerblog. Combining the holiday with the environmental cues works really well in your work. I can feel in your words how your father brought strength and security to you as a child, even against the giant ocean. I felt a lot of emotion at the end, with the hope of change.
The images here resonate deeply “Father and daughter,/great whale and little fish” — and I am wondering if perceptions of great and little can every fully shift or reverse.
Sarah
An amazing photograph of such a loving memory. I am in the thick of aging parents and none of it is easy, but I am trying to remind myself to find the joy in every day. It’s there, but sometimes hard to see. Be the sea.
I feel this healing ‘reach’ towards your father in this poem; and yes, the sea is “a chance for possibility,” I think. I adore this stanza –
Joanne, I recall that salt water heals all…your verse has that airy, healing feel to it, especially after reading the intro about your difficult relationship with your father. It is a loving, grateful tribute. There is such peace and joy in this scene. I think we we learn to glean the good in our memories…if we sift and sift enough, we find some gems. This one glitters so.
Joanne, I sense the waves, the winds, the currents of life. The whale and the little fish, swimming together in the summertime waters. This is a painting – – a watercolor of life, with deep meaning and rich sensory imagery.
Jennifer, your poem is haunting and beautiful–especially love “world we planted.” Thank you for this prompt today.
she houses cetaceans
comforts elasmobranches
she hydrates shipwrecks
electrolytes of life for reefs
yet she cannot save us
after we deplete our
salinate-free springs
Stefani, your words connect through the pronoun she, bridging women and earth. I’m especially drawn to “she hydrates shipwrecks” – such a nourishing and anguishing sentiment housed in those three words. I fear neither she (earth or women) can save what we have done. But it’s up to us and we must try. Thank you for bringing attention to this message.
Stefani, wow I love all those words you have used, some are new to me. Such rich and beautiful descriptions of what this other mother Water does for us. Even she is not safe, though, with all she does. Haunting poem. Thank you.
Stefani,
The “she” offers such grounding in the personal, in the personifying. She is doing her work like other she’s are doing work. The verbs are active and agentive. Feels like a sister or friend or mother to me and yet, there is a limit to what she can do because of the collective “we” undermining her work, her progress, her vision, her purpose. Ugh.
Well done, Stefani.
Sarah
I love the vocabulary here! And the powerful feminine throughout. I had to look up “elasmobranches” and I just love how that line rolls off my tongue, “comforts elasmobranches”… this is wonderful.
Stefani,
Way to send me to the dictionary, but also way to force our thinking about the oceans and what we are doing to these life-giving organisms. Beautiful poem.
Jennifer, those scarecrows are haunting there in the fields, the hearts dried, the lifeless bodies so limp and unfeeling. Where, indeed, are we headed? Your prompt is one we dance along the periphery of in so many of our countryside drive discussions, wondering about the future of our county, heartsick over each new development, each new killing of droves of trees that were once home to birds, deer, foxes, squirrels, bees, chipmunks, raccoons, opossums…..it breaks my heart for the wildlife and for the children who may never know the wonder of fireflies. Thank you for your compelling prompt today.
Fairy Firefly Future
I ride these ribbony roads
rolling hills of rural Georgia
where roosters herald
morning
proclaiming
LIKE BREAKING NEWS
the miracle
of sunrise
meander these mid-day meadows
and forests, treetop-tiered trills
of triumphant birdsong
tapping my fingers on the wheel to the
backbeat bleat of sheep
throaty goaty notes
descant of donkeys
breathe the melodies of
fresh-mown fields and
hallelujah wildflowers
in their symphonious seasons
pay homage to these sunset hillsides
alive with life’s simple abundance
harmonizing frogs and crickets
……my mind drifts,
~I turn a corner: houses under construction! ~
wondering…..what will become of this place?
will my great grandchildren
ever see green fairy fireflies
twinkling tiny stars
dipping beneath the
deep ocean of sky?
Beautiful, Kim. My summer childhood was filled with fireflies. I don’t see many any more. I used sleep with a jar of them at my bedside and then release them in the morning. Thank you for this.
Kim, we are companion spirits traveling life, recognizing the same heartaches AND the same beauty. I’m intrigued by the capitalization and stand alone line of LIKE BREAKING NEWS, as if it’s like breaking news but not, or announcing like it, here’s the news, or if it’s like, as in almost the same as breaking news. Your words sing (albeit in backbeat bleats and throaty goaty notes – my fave!) but also in the hallelujah wildflowers and melodies to breathe. Those last five lines – wow, wow! WOW!
Oh, Kim, what word choice, what wonder, what music! This is so gorgeous, starting with those rolling roads and /r/ alliteration, the musical barnyard:
And then that ending of the fireflies as stars in the sky. Oh, my! I love this. And the question you ask pointing to the climate: “what will become of this place?”
Oh, Kim the celebration of rurality of place is breathtaking here. I am with you on this drive and loving all the sounds…until…the corner. This is quite an intrusion on so many levels that I worry for our rurality and way of being.
And, I love so many of the phrases here: Fairy Firefly Future and throaty goat notes and ribbony roads. Gorgeous!
Sarah
Kim, this poem has me riding along those rolling hills alongside you – so many gorgeous images, and that sense of forlorn, impending loss of so much natural beauty. May it not be so!
Also – the alliterative title is so fun!
Kim,
More sprawl! ugh! I know the number of fireflies has dropped to an all-time low, and I fear for their future. I have the same concern about our green spaces, the nature that calls us. I thought about this often as I rode my bike yesterday. I even heard a rooster crowing at one point. Your poem speaks to my heart.
“breathe the melodies of
fresh-mown fields and
hallelujah wildflowers
in their symphonious seasons”
is my favorite stanza here, I can smell it! I ran in wheat fields and meadows growing up in rural TN, much of which is now covered by subdivisions, Wal-Marts, and roads. How far will our children have to travel to see an expanse of green?
Kim,
The melodious flow of your poem works so well with its meaning. Your use of alliteration is skillful!
I love how your poem described all the surrounding beauty and then three the whammy in of urban sprawl.
Kim, I felt as if I was riding the ribbony roads and rolling hills of rural Georgia with you. Your description is so like riding the less-hilly backroads of central rural NC. I know where to glimpse great blue herons that almost vanish magically into the background; I can spot a hawk almost every time I’m out. On the last day of school, a small striped creature scampered across the small-town street in front of my car: a CHIPMUNK. The first one I’ve ever seen. They’re normally farther west. I’ve read that their population is spreading, but I haven’t read a reason for it. I suspect loss of habitat… like you, I mourn the land clearings nearby and wonder where the birds and creatures will go. Again like you, my spirit sings on these nature-journey and aches in the scarred places where houses are going in. Often, not always, it’s folks selling family land… I fear we do not know the extent of what we are losing. Meanwhile I try to think of more ways I can make a bird haven in my backyard… my little Micah comes to me, hands held high, to be picked up and to look through the windows: “Bird,” she says. “Bird.” This is the future…
Kim, I love the celebratory tone of your gorgeous opening lines. I can just see you meandering these hilly roads full of song. Then you switch to the houses under construction, and it’s clear that the change they will produce could be more than devastating. Love the melodies of your poem! Hugs!
Kim, I just saw my first firefly tonight and had to come back and share!
Jennifer – you have my heart here with birds, collective nouns, conservation, and the stark brilliance of your poem. Crows are fascinating creatures… so much to say about them but what symbolism here about human impact, human failure, in the primary job we were given: tending to our Earth. We reap what we sow… this is echoing in my mind with your final line. Thank you for this call to attention, to mindfulness, to action.
I write a lot about birds. I watch them a lot. Here’s a current chapter of human-bird life in verse…dedicated to the stars of this poem.
A “Forbearance” of Bluebirds
Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA): “No person may take (kill), possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such bird except as may be permitted under the terms of a valid permit…” Under the MBTA it is illegal to destroy a nest that has eggs or chicks in it or if there are young birds that are still dependent on the nest for survival. – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The back deck is old.
Boards are warped. Rusted nails poke
every which-a-way.
Time to tear it down.
Except that there’s a birdhouse
there on the eastward
facing corner. And
in this birdhouse is a nest.
In this nest four eggs,
bright turquoise-blue, rest.
I wish I’d known this before
I called the builder.
I thought they were done,
Mama and Papa Bluebird.
They already raised
a bountiful brood:
five lingering juveniles
adorned the fence posts
for weeks upon weeks.
One day they vanished, as is
the way of bluebirds.
They don’t flock. They pair.
There is no collective noun
for Eastern Bluebirds.
Perhaps I have one:
A “forbearance” of bluebirds.
For I won’t allow
the relocation
of the birdhouse with those eggs
that I now suspect
are hatching. I’ve learned
to read shadows on my walls,
to look up and catch
Papa’s bright blue swoop
from sky to birdhouse, to perch
on the side where he
checks his surroundings,
insect clutched tight in his beak,
quick pop! in the hole,
then zipping away.
Now he goes all the way in
which makes me believe
nestlings have arrived.
Mama is visible, too,
just not as often.
In and out she goes
to stretch her sheltering wings
but never for long.
They do not know laws
forbid moving active nests
and that I abide
on their behalf, on
behalf of the world, at least
in this small corner.
So the old deck stands
for a little while longer.
These are its best days.
I love everything about this poem! AND I’M GLAD THE BLUEBIRDS HAVE FORBEARANCE. And you do too, my friend. Wonderful images, Fran!
Oh, Fran. This is simply lovely. You capture the tiniest details and bring them to life, tell their story. We have built blue bird nests on two of our last properties (one became home to sparrows after mice enlarged the hole). I feel the need to shelter them. I am so glad you are abiding on their behalf in your small corner. It is in the small corners where actions will bloom and grow. (I think you’ve coined a new collective too!).
Fran, brava, my dear! I love this tribute to this sweet family of Eastern Bluebirds. Second family in one season. What do the birds know of climate change and urgency, I wonder? Your long-form haiku reminded me of Kim, as she loves that form. I am re-reading it now with awe at your mastery of this form. (I need to try it.) That last stanza is my absolute favorite. “These are its best days” Beautiful.
The forbearance of you! I’m so glad that you treasure these dear souls, delaying the builder. Beautiful story-telling, one sweet stanza after another. I paused and took a deep breath of wonder at your phrasing here –
“I’ve learned
to read shadows on my walls”
Love this!
Fran,
This sure yanked me in and had me learning and loving and championing for those bluebirds. I am glad you included the note at the start about the MBTA because it set my mind and heart right.
These are indeed your deck’s best days.
Fran, I love love love this! Can one person make a difference? Can one person make a stand? Yes, here, “in this small corner,” you “abide / on their behalf” and make a difference! And I’m all for your collective noun: “A ‘Forbearance’ of Bluebirds.” Where’s the petition to sign to make this official? You’ve got my vote! [On a side note: Have you read Joseph Bruchac’s “Birdfoot’s Grampa”? (https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/birdfoot-s-grampa) Your wonderful poem thematically reminded me of the grampa saving the toads that he could (knowing that they couldn’t all be saved).]
Fran, I can see you reading the shadows on the wall – – a bit like reading the tea leaves in true bird-oracle fashion, knowing the patterns of coming and going as parents care for their young – or babies on the way. Those shadows – – what vivid imagery, which brings to mind the thought of candling, looking inside an egg for movement to see the shadows of the heartbeat and chicken kicking within. I love that you stopped the building process for birds – – the dread of having to wait, but the joy and sacredness of the life of these little birds. Indeed, you are building the future.
Thanks for this prompt, Jennifer. Your poem is a gut-puncher with the image of us “watching the world we planted.” My brother was recently the victim of a straight-line wind in his neighborhood. Rows of trees were ripped out of the ground. I did a little research and found that none of the articles will claim that these out-of-nowhere storms are the result of climate change. Huh? Duh?
No Warning
A few crackles of lightning
a rumble of thunder
out of nowhere
a straight-line wind
tore trees from their root balls.
Energy in forward motion
released by a thundercloud
caught in the undertow
of danger.
We had not gathered
strength or resolve
or turned on the generator.
Climate change
or summer storm?
You decide.
The scientists are gun shy.
Margaret, from the crackles and rumble to the undertow of danger, this speaks of foreboding. It will remain difficult to side with the gun shy as more become personal witnesses. Your title at the onset juxtaposes those last words, much as our real world will do.
You expressed the power of nature. so well – forward motion – caught in the undertow of danger. It is that surprise of nature – not warning – just power. Beautifully expressed.
Margaret, the choice of words and the pace are perfect for the sudden rush of energy, and being caught off guard.
Margaret, thank you for not being gun shy about saying what it is. I sometimes watch the weather reports with the cataclysmic events and wonder why they don’t speak more about it. Some of my favorite phrases: “Energy in forward motion” and “caught in the undertow / of danger” helps us to picture what these straight line winds do. And those lines about being unprepared by all you have not been able to do for the “out of nowhere” storm are perfect.
Thanks Denise. This literally happened in my brother and mother’s town and my hometown of Jackson, MS. Today he is chainsawing a fallen tree and our church service was in the dark (and heat). It did have a charm to it, though. Evensong-like in the morning.
Thank you for sharing this frightening calamity with poetic words – such a gift. These lines are so powerful –
It is climate change.
My son and I were hit by a tree 6 years ago during a storm, and it took me a long time to be able to talk or write about it. This poem sums up the experience well – especially “Energy in forward motion
released by a thundercloud
caught in the undertow
of danger”
It came without warning, just a breezy day at the park. I hope someone is taking data about these smaller, short storms popping up all over, and not just the sensational ones.
Margret,
Such vivid imagery. I too wonder are these “summer storms” a sign of climate change?
ooooh, those lines, “the scarecrows/we’ve become” packs a gut punch. Wonderful prompt and wonderful poem. Thanks so much for this…I’m off to free write my way into an eco poem.
Thank you 🙏 for a wonderful prompt this morning. Three days ago I was able to purchase a chainsaw and I saw a need to cut down a rotten dogwood tree in my yard. As I walked to cut the tree down I saw an image in the tree and decided to carve it out. 😀.
Queen Dogwood
I see you in there,
I’ll free you with care.
layers shall fall,
free –
you will stand tall.
just a dog with rot,
I’ll carve your eternal spot.
I see you in there,
Releasing, as I tear
your skin to green,
transforming you into my wooden queen.
Now your spirit exists,
I freed you, I couldn’t resist.
Others would’ve made a stump,
cut you into pieces in a stacked lump.
But I freed you, and you freed me,
We coexist spiritually.
As the rot was removed,
our layered life improved.
Removing the old,
revealing your soul,
allowed my creativity to mold,
a generational story to be told.
Wooden Queen protect us all,
Naturally, until we fall.
The dirt we feel now, we will be,
Our spirit will sprout young dogwood trees.
Boxer, the loss of your dogwood tree (my favorite flowering tree) is greatly felt. A queen indeed! These lines – “now your spirit exists/I freed you, I couldn’t resist” – encapsulate finding something new in what was, and honoring that. And I love that both you and the Wooden Queen combine in spirit to sprout the young trees. A beautiful way to honor nature.
I love that you saw art in your work of destruction and then followed through. Amazing new spirit of the dogwood tree. Rotten tree+chainsaw=poetry
Poem – carving – both wonderful. I lost a dogwood many years ago. She was beautiful, a pink umbrella. I wanted to save her but they said there was nothing to do but cut her down. I wish I had whittled her into a wooden queen. Thank you for this!
Clayton, what beauties. The yard art creation you made as you removed the rot as well as the poem.
“The dirt we feel now, we will be…” is so profound and humbling. What a rich message to remember that we are just passing through this short time on Mother Earth.
I love this homage carving, this homage poem. What a beautiful way to commemorate a beloved tree. We have an artist in my community that creates beautiful carvings from fallen trees. I love what you have created – just gorgeous!
Jennifer – Your poem… the murder of crows is perhaps my very favorite collective noun … even Willie Nelson sings about them. The image of crows on the “scarecrows we’ve become” is a perfect image. The “hang limp” is exacting… and so doggone true. Stunnng poem. I’m inspired and hope to find my words later today. I love this prompt. ❤️