Saturday, April 22, 2023

Two for Earth Day—National Poetry Month 2023

 

Today is Earth Day which was first observed world-wide with giant marches and rallies on April 22, 1970.  It took the energy and activism of the peace movement and anti-Vietnam War protests and gave people a new purpose.  It has generally been credited with reorienting  somewhat stodgy and human-use focused conservationism into a dynamic ecology movement.  It is still widely celebrated and has become a kind of semi-official holiday.  But it has often been co-opted and is used both by polluting mega corporations and thumb-twiddling governments as green washing and providing support for band aid personal activities like recycling to avoid deeper changes which would cut profits, re-order economies, and fundamentally change how we live our lives.

The radical cutting edge of environmentalism is now the youth-led climate change activists inspired by Greta Thunberg which accept no excuses, demand immediate action, and are willing to employ mass disruptive direct action.

This year the ugly, brutal invasion of Ukraine also reminds us that war itself is an ecological disaster as if other conflicts involving non-Europeans like those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, sub-Saharan Africa, Myanmar, and Central America were not enough evidence.

Still, Earth Day remains at least an important reminder for many people.  Today we share  appropriate poems for the occasion by the always inspiring Marge Piercy and a still kicking Old Man.

Marge Piercy.

The Birthday of the World

On the birthday of the world

I begin to contemplate

what I have done and left

undone, but this year

not so much rebuilding

 

of my perennially damaged

psyche, shoring up eroding

friendships, digging out

stumps of old resentments

that refuse to rot on their own.

 

No, this year I want to call

myself to task for what

I have done and not done

for peace. How much have

I dared in opposition?

 

How much have I put

on the line for freedom?

For mine and others?

As these freedoms are pared,

sliced and diced, where

 

have I spoken out? Who

have I tried to move? In

this holy season, I stand

self-convicted of sloth

in a time when lies choke

 

the mind and rhetoric

bends reason to slithering

choking pythons. Here

I stand before the gates

opening, the fire dazzling

 

my eyes, and as I approach

what judges me, I judge

myself. Give me weapons

of minute destruction. Let

my words turn into sparks.

 

a—Marge Piercy

 

And finally, another from that annoying Old Man.

 

                             The Old Man.

The Fire Next Time is Now

August 27, 2019

 

For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

 

           —2 Peter 3: 5-7 The Bible New King James Version

 

Okay, so Biblical Prophecy is not my thing.

Mumbo-jumbo, mystic-tristick bullshit.

It gives me a rash and a headache.

 

But this creeps me out, you know?

            Cripes look at the headlines!

                        Record Heat Wave Feeds Massive Australian Bush Fires

                        Wildfires Permanently Alter Alaska’s Forest Composition

                        Huge Wildfires in the Arctic and Far North Send a Planetary Warning

                        Siberia is Burning!

                        Lungs of the World Ablaze in the Amazon

                        More Fires Now Burning in Angola, Congo Than Amazon.

 

Maybe Peter, or whoever wrote in his name,

            was onto something after all.

            I don’t know exactly who is un-godly

—me probably, you maybe,

those guys over there,

but maybe the day of judgement and perdition

is on us all after all.

 

We failed somehow despite the warnings

            of a thousand prophets, Jeremiahs, and Cassandras

            who warned us over and over

            to do something before it’s too late.

 

Is it too late really?  We beg for answers from the Holy seers.

            Hear our plea

                        Al Gore

                        Neil deGrasse Tyson

                        Gagged scientists of NOAA and NASA

Greta Thunberg  and your children’s crusade.

                        Elders of the Alaskan Nunakauyarmiut Tribe

 

Can we wake up, you know, like Scrooge on Christmas morning

            fresh and new, our eyes wide open

            and throw open the shutters to buy the world

            a turkey and a second chance?

 

Probably not that easy.

 

But you know what’s worse?

            That Bible guy said no flood this time,

            but he was wrong—

            the oceans rise, the world sinks

            Fire and Flood

                        Fire and Flood

                                    Fire and Flood.

—Patrick Murfin

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