A speck of dust upon the moss,
A tiny life the breezes toss,
Too small for any passing eye,
Beneath the wide and heavy sky.
It has no stem to proud upright,
No brilliant petals catching light,
No perfume drifts across the lake,
Where sleeping frogs and ripples wake.
Yet Wolffia drifts, a microscopic dot,
Upon the still pond's quiet spot,
No roots to anchor in the silt,
No green and spreading leaves to wilt.
A speck of green, a simple grain,
Untouched by heavy summer rain,
Two grains of salt could match its weight,
So small it mocks the grand and great.
Through needle eyes its frame could slide,
Like quiet hurts we lock inside,
A single stamen, lonely fruit,
An empire built without a root.
The busy bee goes buzzing by,
To seek the garden's painted crowd,
And misses where the treasure lies,
Concealed from all impatient eyes.
Whole ages fade and cities rust,
While mountains crumble into dust,
The loudest voices fade away,
Like shadows at the end of day.
For greatness is not born of might,
Or standing tallest in the light,
The weary heart can still endure,
With quiet steps, and purposes pure.
the deer died with her eyes open
which means she watched herself
become field
something permeable
I found her on the third day of autumn—
found autumn wearing her decaying hide
like a hand-me-down dress
the flies had already written their poems
in the metaphors of her throat:
small black punctuation, multiplying
I wanted to close her eyes
but my hands passed through
what I once believed was boundary
later the biologist told me
decomposition is just the body
finally telling the truth
about how many selves were always
inside you waiting to be released—
even the child who never grew old enough
to be revision
now when I say I, I mean the forty trillion
bacteria who call this dirt-body home
I mean the deer
the flies
I mean the light
that passed through her
and landed here
in this poem
which is just another way of being eaten
which is just another word for love
by the porous self
The Earth isn't dying—no, she's screaming, a sound you've stopped hearing.
she cried when girls walked miles for rusted, tainted water,
when ancient forests become forgotten, ash–filled pyres,
no worn map ever dared to mark.
In my homeland,
we don't fear the tempest's furious might.
We fear the silence –
The hollow echo of empty, cracked wells,
the desolate stretch of barren, parched fields,
The early,unforgiving digging of our graves.
They label us “developing,”
yet we are always the very first to drown,
The very first to wither from hunger's bite,
The very first to forfeit a future
we never, ever sought to destroy.
They peddle green, plastic-wrapped illusions.
“Eco.” “Clean.”
As if mere words could somehow
unscorch the blazes from the sky.
But behold, we stand–
girls with bare hands, replanting the struggling forests,
boys coding, fighting against the swift collapse,
children marching, with fierce fire in their lungs.
I continue to write.
Because even now,
The Earth, in her enduring wisdom, still believes in us.
I join in spirit; the public of France.'
Who young and older in romance
Entwined desire, with freedoms fire'
In peaceful protest; contrast the ire '
Of devious governments desires'
They do not reckon, or balance out
For sustainable living people shout.'
Take them from the billions spent
Squeezed in utiltys and soaring rent
It' was spent on war, the mood is sore!
Ecological damage, way up the score
Animals trees parks and farms
Is this saving the planet.?
Or egregious harm.?
We expect to find
and ecologically pursue
performing possessive behaviors,
speaking with LeftBrain dominant purpose
in our individualized ego lives.
We invite,
theologically hope for,
and faithfully search out
and in to fulfill,
nonviolently provide
peaceful purpose
to protect interdependent
intersectional
meaningful relationships
in Earth's web
of sacred compassion.
EcoPolyPaths:
Avenues for restoring stressed
traumatized PolyVillage EcoCulture
and
marginalized Regenerative EarthJustice
Usually inter-religiously inspired by asking
What would I/We look
sound
green taste
smell
touch
feel like
making win/win healthy and safe co-passion
with this
sacred holistic room
yard
forest
desert
body of water
state of trans-national soil
mountain
river
home
family
tribe
species
relationship?
Within this severed win/lose,
yet potential win/win,
integral
inviting
next situation.
I live each breath
each day
each month
each season
each year
each stage of lifespan
each life and death cycle
of passionate memory,
between eternal consciousness
and timeless change.
Breathing in non-zero sum
and exhaling zero-sum
and vice versa spatial Time
Who knows significant differences
in such profound zero balancing,
similarities of emptiness
and fullness,
symmetries,
centers,
sources?
Earth's ecofeminist life span
and Ego's left-hemisphere
mutually reflect dynamic changing passions,
timeless theological play,
passion's eternal re-creative work,
eternal wisdom
as of timeless personal knowledge,
polypaths of correlating wonder
wandering in polyphonic
eternal octaved awe.
I need not become capable
of defining regenerative breath
and spirit of dynamic time
to already be bilateral refiner
of Spirit's renatured fractal Source.
Growing up on God's impoverishing family farm,
he learned to hide his work
in tissues of unearthly privacy.
Regenerating in Earth's richly resonant nutrition,
she recovered her playful avocations
in ecosystemic response
to global over-grasping issues
of under-conscious
her/his-storied
positive domesticity
Over-privatized
so powers under-privileged;
personalized
so shy of compelling
retelling publicity
Earth camouflaged
democratically healthy ecopolitics,
co-empowering
co-operating
co-generating
co-laterally co-investing
co-systemic
ego/eco-analogical
co-passion.
Growing out on Earth's extending family farm,
he learned to share his playful work
with issues of unEarthly
inhumane
left-hemispheric primacy.
Exoplanets that lie in the Goldilocks Zone
might be settled by us if their substance is stone.
Be it marble or granite,
we’ll possess such a planet
after thoroughly spoiling and wrecking our own.
In macroeconomic wealth
we express mutual namaste
for robust ecotherapeutic global climate resilience
co-arising
microeconomic bio-ego-logical WinWin cooperative
health-care resonance
Restoring macro-global cooperative wealth
without retributive individual micro-egological loss
of resiliently wealthy Yang/Yin
bilaterally co-intelligent
eco/neuro-logical resonant health.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.