UW Sustainability Courses

EARTH POEMS : Round 4

A radiant red leaf floats into my hand
Cool and crisp
I crunch it up into potato chip crumbs
And send sparks of fire into the wind.

Angie Davis

Off the trail a yellow aspen leaf
Dances with a ray of sun
Twirling, swirling as one
Along comes a red maple leaf
In search of a resting mate
Off they go with a swift breeze
Into the lake for a float
Drifting, drifting away.

Scott Klamik

Red, yellow, green and gold
Some together against a blue matte.
Still coming and coming,
Now red, green, gold and yellow
Turning to red and yellow
Just for a blink or two.
And then the red falls
With gravity also taking the yellow,
Leaving a thick brown trunk,
Naked and bland, and ready for a chill.

John Tymus

Two pebbles, one smooth, one jagged
I run my fingers over the first,
No lines, no craters,
So smooth my fingers cannot stop their spinning.
I pick up the other, unlike the first
It is craggy and sharp.
My fingers revolt at first, too painful!
But as I turn it over, I feel the
Beauty in its cranky, misshapen features,
It is the weed in my front lawn
It is the straggly little bush beneath my window
It is the bats, the mice, the spiders.
Each aspect of nature, beautiful for the role it plays within.

Erin Lieg

Modern Life Symphony
Just listen
To nature’s music
A composer’s dream
Zillions and zillions
Of melodies
But also listen
To the sounds of humans
A listener’s nightmare
Zillions of noises
So just listen to
These birds singing
And those bells ringing
Bees humming
And factories drumming.
That is the third movement
Of the modern life symphony
Fortunately unfinished yet.

Florian Laux

Touch of Sun

But in its warmth
I felt the purest joy
Baking my skin
When I add a dab of cadmium yellow to a glob of titanium white
A crisp layer of sunshine
Out-lining my cheekbones
My weakbones
That I longed for the touch of that love
That pure joy
(of that one little boy)
Where flashes that zap of heat
On my eyelids
Sleeping in the daytime
It’s a wonder my epidermis doesn’t just melt off my body.

Elissa Chasen

I hear the wind rustling through
Bare-limbed trees
Ocean tides, calm and hypnotic

I hear leaves crackling
The laughter of knowing

I hear cool whispers – tingling in my ears

Winter is coming.

Angie Davis

A Lake Lullaby

When the lights go down and round this earth
And everyone has laid their head down to sleep,
(they pray their souls that they may keep)
I sit by the lake
In the closest thing to silence I can find
A lulling, - rocking, - waving – movement
Sliding, - crashing, - swooshing – melody
Smooth – saa-mooth
In and out of my ears
As I, deep in a lack of thought,
Study the water
In and out of sight, in and out of mind
Cradling me ear to ear
Making it perfectly clear
I need be no where but here.

Elissa Chasen

Sustainable Sounds

Two cows banter about

“Georgette, you’re naked
Put some metal on those udders.”
Lactating without underwire,
No civility or class to that cow.

“Were you born in a barn?”

“Phyllis, quit eating Uncle Bob.
Relative feed is immoral
You truly are a Mad Cow.
Get out and enjoy
Free range air.
You might be hormonal
But this moody?”

“You’re a dumb cow.
Times, technology change.
I produce 1384 gallons of milk
Per hour.”
Climb the corporate plank
Become ground chuck in
Fast food burgers.

“You belligerent bovine.
Small children taste my sweet cream.
Your toxic tit puts
Small children on Prozac
By second grade.

Shelly Schwarzmann

The Night Sky gave life as breath
To the slumbering Earth.
And out of Time came generations,
Enticed by Dominion,
Destroyed by Hubris,
Leaving a world veiled by the Present.

Lars Ecklund-Mitchell