Our Mother’s Dying

Our Mother is dying.
Why aren’t we trying
To live the answer
That’ll heal her cancer?

The disease is a rout,
Her hair’s falling out;
Her colors up and gone,
Her breath almost to none,

Her blue eyes a gray,
Her smile’s slipped away,
And soon she will cease.
May the planet rest in peace.

Then we’ll say a eulogy,
Offer an apology
On that day soon to come
When her beauty’s all gone:

For her dulling colors,
Her polluted waters,
Her forests now dust,
And her air turned to rust.

Her hills won’t be green,
No robins to sing,
The whales dead and beached,
And oceans smell of stench.

Then we’ll send our request
And give it our best,
A prayer for a world
Uncluttered and spoiled.

“No thanks,” God will answer,
“You caused the cancer.
While racing for the stars,
You turned the Earth into Mars.

And tried for all its worth
To turn Mars into Earth.”
And this from God above,
“I gave you one planet to love.”

A-praising: An Earth Day Poem

Inspired by the Creation Psalm of Genesis

Sun and wind and water
and moondrops upon
sea and land and sea reborn,

ice and fire, tree and grass,
sunflowers spread like a feast
across meadow and hill,

whale and dolphin, bee and bear,
birds making for sky,
and many the creatures earth-ed and sea-ed.

Day rising and day setting,
an ever spinning song
of Earth blue and green.

Sun, yellow sun

Sun, yellow Sun
Chase the dark away
Open the morning curtains
Give us another day

Sun, yellow Sun
Part the sea of clouds
Flowers bend hello
The oak stands unbowed

Sun, yellow Sun
Bright above our heads
Your children, the robins
Their songs sunlight fed

Sun, yellow Sun
Pass the noonday line
Shadows on your trail
Done with morning’s climb

Sun, yellow Sun
Sinking into bed
Day closed behind you
Your footprints orange and red

Sun, yellow Sun
Asleep for a time
Slip off into dreamland
Let Moon complete the rhyme.

Moonlight and midday

The sea is blue
at high tide at night,
a moon above
a great ball of light,
stars sprinkling on
a canvas of sky,
gulls cawing out,
“Come with us and fly.”

Dolphins and whales
through the seas they run,
singing their songs
under moon and sun.
Waves of water
rising and falling,
sea and the wind
hear the shore calling.

Blue and the blue
the sky and the sea
and the white clouds
and shadows of trees.
Sand brown beaches
nesting turtle eggs
till the sea calls
from the water’s edge.

The sun setting,
moon rise in the east,
stars returning,
the great and the least.
The horizon
a distance away,
sea and the sky,
moonlight and midday.

The sea is blue
at high tide at night.

Honoring Earth Day

Calypso by John Denver

Today is Earth Day. It is a day to remember how much our Mother means to us. Jacques Cousteau committed his life to reminding us of the wonder of the world we live in. The Calypso was the ship he voyaged the seas of this planet. In honoring the Calypso, John Denver honors the work Jacques Cousteau and others do to save our Mother from what we are doing to her and our fellow creatures.

Take a moment and think of all the beauty the Earth gives us. The sunrises and the sunsets. The robins and the butterflies. The snowy mountain peaks and the valleys sown with green. The clear streams and the seas teeming with life. The polar bears and the snow leopards. The penguins and the dolphins. Think about what we are losing. Say a prayer, do something, and don’t keep silent.