Ethics, Values, & Sustainability
Environmental Strategy & Sustainability
Systems Thinking & Sustainable Businesses
Last Updated 01/14/2006
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GROUP 7
Warm and sunny
Smells of dinner on the table
Fresh herbs from the garden
And vegetables overflowing
Fresh cut flowers in a vase
Pots and pans hung from the ceiling
Windows and doors open
Friends and family are waiting.
Amelia Musser
2015
a house
not too big, because I’d fill it with junk
but not too small, because my friends need to fit
it’ll be full of animals, probably a basset hound, a mutt, three cats and a ferret.
It might be the house where my mom lives now, in the middle of nowhere
A phrase I always find funny, “middle of nowhere;”
Because in big cities there is so much it is nothing.
If it’s that house, it’s look just like it does now, except I’d put in new counters as
The current ones are much too low even for me. The collage that is the bathroom
Walls I did would probably expand into the living room, and walking in from the kitchen,
a visitor would be wont to exclaim.
“I can see the whole world here!”
because that’s what collages do.
The house is the type of place where one can find a bear rug in the attic,
Or a piano in an unused bedroom, or a ninetheenth-century tapestry in another unused
Bedroom, or dentures from a man who’d been dead for fifteen years. By the time
I’d live there again, though, all the odd-ball treasures of generations of my
Stepdad’s family will probably have been found.
But that’s okay, ‘cause with collages and being nowhere
And my sisters and friends dropping by
I’d have everything I’d need.
Sarah Edwards
Have been searching for 30 years,
Travel to three continent,
I wonder where my destined one was.
Owen Li
My house in ten years is beautiful
Huge, because it’s in Lake Forest
It’s massive and screams “new money”
But I don’t care, because I’m rich
Ben is my pool boy
He may have written that he’d have a theater in his house
But instead, he brings me fruity blended beverages
And he plays the ukulele
Blaire Skinner
Planned with perfection
Lifted up with muscle
Cut with aggression
Built with bare hands.
Raised with sweat
Chinked with passion
Squared with precision
Built for me and her.
Nailed with care
Wired with confidence
Laid with ease
Built for life.
Finished with heart
Furnished with personality
Lit with affection
Built with love.
Built to last.
Ted Condon
20 years from now…
Crazy, busy, out of control!
The house is never clean enough and the kids are never home
Baseball, soccer, cross country at night
The jet in and out of the house and then out of sight
Homework, dates, late night phone calls
My husband and I try to help pick them up each time they fall
Stressed, determined, never enough time
Their lives resemble and look much like mine
Boating, vacations, hot summer nights
This time of year there are rarely any fights
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen
As a couple we were crazy to think we could handle this scene
Smiles, memories, tears
All things they have given me through the years
Kelly Hyland
The Most Spectacular Apt in Paris
I read about it once in a listing in the New Yorker
what caught my eye was the byline,
“Possibly the most spectacular apt in Paris!”
I was 19 and infatuated with Europe
especially the La Ville des Lunes
“Beautiful views of the Eiffel Tower,
Master bath floats over framed view of the Seine.”
The add alone melodically written,
sounded to me like a poetic dream.
The interior magically reflected all the beauty around it
“Boiserie, marble coffered entry, inlaid wood flrs”
breathtaking inside and out
the apartment of my dreams
Chelsey Wolfgram
Always looking out
But so much to see right here
I bring myself inside
To the comfort of our place
Perfect in its lack of space
In its lack of coordination
And it its obvious imperfection
Brynna Larsen
It's raining again. The water is falling in buckets.
Inside the house is warm. And very, very dry.
There is a TV, and videogames for the kids
There is brownie mix in the cupboard
And vanilla ice cream in the freezer
It is easy to live inside a warm house.
It is easy to keep the children occupied
With mindless programming and fluff.
But we don't choose easy.
We are in a tent a hundred miles from a warm house.
Everyone is smiling and earning their fun
Its raining now.
But there could be sun tomorrow.
Travis North
hand in hand we travel the land
in search of nothing but to understand
life here life there we stare
love me (and you) we share
40 years old be told
we grow young not to get old
sing and dance is our stance
living life as in life's romance.
Orion Henningsgaard
A miracle
I am exhausted,
unable to pull my thighs
back together.
I drift in and out of consciousness,
content amidst the pain,
knowing the tiny creature,
a miracle,
is taking its first breaths
and using its baby lungs
to cry out a greeting.
I am ethereally happy,
my belly, still full of life support,
is at once luxuriously empty.
I have a newfound purpose,
a reawakening,
a birth of my own,
for now I am responsible
for the life of another.
Leah Hart
Five years from now
Something tells me I’ll still be wandering
Wondering and waiting
To find something meaningful to latch on to
But a little more sure, a little more certain
About the process
About the journey
About where I’m headed next
Brynna Larsen
Oh house how you’ve seen the passage of time.
First you sheltered my grandparents, then my family, now me
I’ve made the transition from the upstairs apt. downstairs now
Just like my parents did 50 years before me
“Temporarily” we said, but I think we knew,
That you and mom and dad would need the care
And you’re family, you can’t just sell family.
You’re still warm and strong fortified with years of memories
You’ve weathered the storms and swells with us and always been there
Which is why you’re still my house.
Sharon Tiedt
