UW Sustainability Courses

EARTH POEMS : Round 3

Sipping the cappuccino
She directed him how to fix her car
Rudest woman he’d ever met
She set the coffee down and turned her back
With one swift movement he dropped in an oily lugnut.

The Scorpion

Placid in my palm
Sits a scorpion
And he knows
And I know
That diplomacy is the only solution

Looking out into the distance
I become incredibly aware
How complex it is
In such a simple form
Grass and trees
Stems and leaves
They support my life
They are part of my world
If I protect them
They will protect me
They speak to me with every passing breeze
They comfort my nerves and anxieties
They have been around much longer than I
So much wisdom they have to share

Without sound
the grasshopper in the basket of oregano
softly jumps into my hand.
In the cold morning of this early fall,
he is slowing down.
He jumps away from me right into Ceely.
Her black snout and pink tongue are very interested
in what is under my cage-like hand.
Unable to protect this small insect forever,
I cover him with a leaf of bok choi
and throw a stick for the dog.

to sink into soil and wait
to float on the ocean like seafoam
to sail in the sky as slow as a cloud
to slow the heartbeat to the turning of the moon
is to become the Earth

Morning comes and I wake in your bed
sunlight on my face
calling my eyes
with mysty light.
The haziness of our touches
and the purity of the soft hues
yellow and red flashes before me.

"By afternoon the angled sun is warm"
and bouncing from leaf to leaf in the fresh breeze
all at once it is a sparkling melody
calling us to the fields
Roll around as the sun bakes our skin
toasting to us with the warmth from within.

The young red squirrel
Seeks out the wet soil
Of hose-watered plants
To its fancy
It finds my red tomato
I’m forced to share

Winks Bright
I sit staring upward, my body still, my gaze focused
The sounds and distractions of life fade until there is nothing
Nothing by the grandiosity of the blackness staring back at me
Sparkling and shimmering, not allowing me to close my eyes
Each one is part of a bigger pattern, but each one shines singularly, without others
I pick one and stare intently until my eyes focus on one shooting across the sky
Winking

CARDINALS

Their urgency is old as time,
To keep their kind alive.
Their once vibrant feathers,
Seemed to have lost their hue.
They are but red dots
On a paper full of finches.
Flight by flight,
They struggle to fight,
The endless oppression.

In today's rebirth of summer sun,
I walked home from your house,
And saw the season change in your neighborhood.
The green ivy that wrapped around your front stoop
Has given way to red and orange lace.
A cold breeze numbs my fingers.

Fleeting moments of consciousness
Rudely interrupt satiating
Afternoon daydream.
PowerPoint flickers, bodies shuffle
Distant cough meets swallowed yawn
Intolerable
Are these afternoons when
Crimson leaf slips from knobby oak
Crippled mind effectively
Slips to simple sleep.

Like the sun lifts dewdrops off quivering grass blades.
Like butterfly wings lift wind gusts unappreciated below
Like the tree branches lift fire up to the heavens
They have lifted earth into themselves.

Washed bright with color
Stands the lonely maple
Amidst a hue of green
For it’s a premature gem
Giving into the brisk evenings
And frosty mornings
Early fall is an indication
Of nature’s beautiful culmination
One by one
They will show up
And present themselves
Through the vibrant window
Of the grandest washing machine.

As I watch leaves
On my lone oak tree
Sitting in the green field
Memories of summer
Come flowing back into my head.

The summer months in Madison
Warm, fun, surrounded by friends
Long nights spent on the porch
Days under the oak
Watching people
Watching leaves.