​

Last Safe Habitat, by Dr. Craig Santos Perez, 2022.

 

I don't want our daughter to know

that Hawai'i is the bird extinction capital

of the world. I don't want her to walk

around the island feeling haunted

by tree roots buried under concrete.

I don't want her to fear the invasive

predators who slither, pounce,

bite, swallow, disease, and multiply.

I don't want her to see paintings

and photographs of birds she'll never

witness in the wild.

I don't want her to

imagine their bones in dark museum

drawers. I don't want her to hear

their voice recordings on the internet.

I don't want her to memorize and recite

the names of 77 lost species and subspecies.

I don't want her to draw a timeline

with the years each was “first collected”

and “last sighted.”

I don't want her to learn

about the Kaua'i 'O'o, who was observed

atop a flowering 'Ohi'a tree, calling

for a mate, day after day, season after

season, because he didn't know he was

the last of his kind—

until one day, he disappeared,

forever, into a nest of avian silence.

I don't want our daughter to calculate

how many miles of fencing is needed

to protect the endangered birds

that remain. I don't want her to realize

the most serious causes of extinction

can't be fenced out.

I want to convince her

that extinction is not the end. I want

to convince her that extinction is

just a migration to the last safe habitat

on earth.

I want to convince her

that our winged relatives have arrived

safely to their destination: a wondrous

island with a climate we can never

change, and a rainforest fertile

with seeds and song.

​

​

Survival, by John Bartlett, 2021.

​

She's back again this year,

in heels and nuptial plumes,

coquettish

in pale eyeliner

            --the white-faced heron

selecting twigs,

thinking of survival

​

What rush of rapture

bursts

            --these birds

designed from

templates of dinosaurs

with songs that shiver

in the deep wells of the soul

​

So, despite 

the cracking ice

in Greenland, the rift,

the cleft, the split,

the speld

​

Despite the smell,

the stench, the stink

of burning forest,

I see you still,

framed

by cross-thatched leaves,

your changing of the guard

with stilt-stepped stealth,

this private pact

between you, 

this brooding hope

                 --triumphant.

​

 

Once I said that bubble wraps are a major source of noise pollution, by Jayant Kashyap, 2022.

 

and everyone laughed and I was happy about it.  Then I said that we are all dying and everyone laughed again.  So I thought it might have been funny

 

and told them about all the whales instead. And about forest fires and heat waves and defined anthropogenic activities.  Some didn't agree that we

​

could cause avalanches to happen or tsunamis, tornadoes and other issues with funny names either,

said the bears and porpoises need to learn to

​

adapt to survive, quoted a bit of Darwin and laughed again.  Everyone said I was being too dull or silly or boring or uninteresting and left me alone.

​

So I went to the library with a bottle of old red wine and read a bit more.  

​

​

Lost, by Eric Abalajon, 2022.

​

The news immediately clarified

             that no person was hurt

and no property was damaged

             by the cow

when it wandered

             into the stretch of Diversion Road

                                                                                 one afternoon.

What wasn't seen,

             or what escaped the minds of 

                          people in traffic;

​

is that there's still patches of Mandurriao

with grasses that are taller than people.

​

             Highway noise

is the one                        out of place.

​

        

​

An Uncertain Future, by Mary V. Botten, 2022.

​

Moving together, we pass through time,

Step by step, no reason nor rhyme.

Pondering on our existence here,

For nothing is certain, nothing is clear.

​

There are cracks in our foundations, cracks in our base,

This eroding, fragile world in which we are placed.

Immeasurable repairs are needed to restore

Our amazing earth that we should adore.

​

I feel we are breaking in every which way,

Moral fibre stretched thin and beginning to fray.

We have the gift of a life, a planet too,

Treasured by many but sadly too few.

​

​

​

Staring Through The Window by Justin Raphael Lopez Gutierrez, 2021.

​

My child, sit by my side,
have a look outside.
What do you see?

The sun and the sands,
the winds and the waves,
the grass and the trees;

They are our responsibility,
yet we have lost the ability
to maintain the beauty bestowed before us.

This magnificent land is ours,
yet we fail to find the hour 
to stop and realize the condition we have left it in.

My child, sit by my side,
have a look outside.
What can you say?

I can only pray 
that there be a day
where you can gaze upon the bluest of skies just as I once did;

Where you can experience vitality
from this grim reality 
that we have turned our land into;

Where the scent of the meadows 
suppress the sorrows
that we've sown on our own soil.

My child, sit by my side,
have a look outside.
What must we do?

Restoration is due; 
return earth to its true
colors and vibrance and beauty and grace.

Evoke the natural ways,
bring back the breathable days
when the air was pure and fresh and crisp and clear.

It's time to embrace 
positive change,
to shatter the pattern
and break the cyclical destruction 
of a home undeniably, unquestionably, irreplaceable.

And I know that we are able
to achieve the sustainable
and throw away the days where disposables were our disabilities.

There is no anonymity.
With one collective identity,
we are all accountable
to this sizeable responsibility

So my child, I tell you,
let the rivers flow,
let the flowers grow,
let the people know,
that the earth needs its glow.

It's an awakening
my child, are you listening?
Beyond that window 
is a tomorrow full of opportunity,
and today, we must march in unity
because that is what it takes to rebuild this land.

It's at the palm of our hands
and it's time to take the ultimate stand 
for a creation so magnificent.
This world is at war, yet again, the victims are the innocent;
There is no moment to be indifferent.
This land needs to heal, we need not be the impediment
And one thing is evident:
My child, we need our future
But it needs us to be present.
 

 

 

Rise: From One Island to Another, by Aka Niviana and Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 2018. Niviana, an Inuk from Greenland, and Jetnil-Kijiner, from the Marshall Islands, wrote and met in Southern Greenland to perform this offering between legendary "sisters" of two far-distant islands both imperiled by global warming. The cinematography and soundtrack of the film, produced by 350.org, are beautiful and moving as well. 

Performance on Vimeo

​

Excerpt:

 

From these islands
we ask for solutions.
From these islands

we ask
we demand that the world see beyond
SUV’s, ac’s, their pre-packaged convenience
their oil-slicked dreams, beyond the belief
that tomorrow will never happen, that this
is merely an inconvenient truth.
Let me bring my home to yours.
Let’s watch as Miami, New York,
Shanghai, Amsterdam, London,
Rio de Janeiro, and Osaka
try to breathe underwater.
You think you have decades
before your homes fall beneath tides?
We have years.
We have months
before you sacrifice us again
before you watch from your tv and computer screens waiting
to see if we will still be breathing
while you do nothing.

My sister,
From one island to another
I give to you these rocks
as a reminder
that our lives matter more than their power
that life in all forms demands
the same respect we all give to money
that these issues affect each and everyone of us
None of us is immune
And that each and everyone of us has to decide
if we
will
rise

​

 

Earthrise by Amanda Gorman, 2018. (first National Youth Poet Laureate) A Climate Reality project dedicated to Al Gore.

Performance on YouTube

 

Excerpt:

 

Climate change is the single greatest challenge of our time,

Of this, you’re certainly aware.
It’s saddening, but I cannot spare you
From knowing an inconvenient fact, because
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait.

So I tell you this not to scare you,
But to prepare you, to dare you
To dream a different reality,

Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.

​

Still, by Miriam Mosqueda (Indigenous Mexican/American poet and artist) 2021.

Performance on YouTube

​

Where I call home

Corn stalks stretch to the sky
Intertwined with cables
And rooftops

A backyard
Not a farm or a field
But we still call this home

For the corn seeds and for us

We both ended up here

Trying to find new ways to be
New places to plant
To grow

We still call this home

Even if we live in diaspora

Forced displacement
On ever changing land
That we’re in relation to
And never in ownership of

As guests
On this soil that so graciously hugs corn seeds into sprout into stalk into life
For us

The year our skies were red with rage from wildfires
Ash fell from above
Floating down and coating our garden gray
Smoke in the air and our lungs
We still placed corn seeds to earth

When a refinery was built next to our family home in Mexico
Out the window we could see it
On the other side of large brick walls were tanks and metal cylinders
trucks moved in and out
Things we’ve never seen before
And we still placed corn seeds to earth

600 gallons of oil were spilled into the water near us this year
Closing access to waterways
poisoning all it touches
A danger greed refuses to see
And we still placed corn seeds to earth

We still call this home

Dad says corn is the gold
Our little soil bed of memories
A prayer held in seeds
Thousands of years old
Corn gives us life when life around us
is changing

We both ended up here
Trying to find new ways to be
New places to plant
To grow
And grow
And grow

We still call this home

​

​

Speaking Tree by Joy Harjo, 2015. (U.S. Poet Laureate, Myskoke Creek nation)

 

I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree —Sandra Cisneros

​

Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
Genealogy of the broken—
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
Or the smell of coffee and no one there—

​

Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
But they do not understand poetry—

​

Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by
Wind, or water music—
Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—

​

Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth
Between sunrise and sunset—

​

I cannot walk through all realms—
I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—

​

What shall I do with all this heartache?

​

The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk
Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—
To the edge of the river of life, and drink—

​

I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:

​

Imagine what would it be like to dance close together
In this land of water and knowledge. . .

To drink deep what is undrinkable

 

​

​

The Council of Pronghorns by Terry Tempest Williams, 2011

​

We, the Council

of Pronghorn

have convened

as witnesses

to this moment

in time

when our eyes

wish to peer

into the hearts

of humans

and ask

what kind

of world

are you creating

when we can

no longer

run as Windhorses

but are relegated

to watching

behind fences

dreaming, dreaming

of Spirit

Migrations?

​

​

An Earth Song by Langston Hughes, 1925

​

It's an earth song,—
And I've been waiting long for an earth song. 
It's a spring song,—
And I've been waiting long for a spring song. 
    Strong as the shoots of a new plant 
    Strong as the bursting of new buds
    Strong as the coming of the first child from its mother's womb. 
It's an earth song, 
A body song, 
A spring song, 
I have been waiting long for this spring song

 

 

 

 

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier (after Wallace Stevens) by Craig Santos Perez, 2016 (poets.org)

​

I

Among starving polar bears,

The only moving thing

Was the edge of a glacier.

​

II

We are of one ecology

Like a planet

In which there are 200,000 glaciers.

​

III

The glacier absorbed greenhouse

gases.

We are a large part of the biosphere.

​

IV

Humans and animals

Are kin.

Humans and animals and glaciers

Are kin.

​

V

We do not know which to fear

more,

The terror of change

Or the terror of uncertainty,

The glacier calving

Or just after.

​

VI

Icebergs fill the vast ocean

With titanic wrecks.

The mass of the glacier

Disappears, to and fro.

The threat

Hidden in the crevasse

An unavoidable cause.

​

VII

Oh vulnerable humans,

Why do you engineer sea walls?

Do you not see how the glacier

Already floods the streets

Of the cities around you?

​

VIII

I know king tides,

And lurid, inescapable storms:

But I know, too,

That the glacier is involved 

In what I know.

​

IX

When the glacial terminus broke,

It marked the beginning 

Of one of many waves.

​

X

At the rumble of a glacier

Losing its equilibrium,

Every tourist in the new Arctic

Chased ice quickly.

​

XI

They explored the poles

For offshore drilling.

Once, we blocked them, 

In that we understood

The risk of an oil spill

For a glacier.

​

XII

The sea is rising.

The glacier must be retreating.

​

XIII

It was summer all winter

It was melting

And it was going to melt

The glacier fits

In our warm-hands.

 

 

James Franco, I Was Born in Into a World, 2016

​

I was born into a world 
Before recycling was a thing, 
Before oil wars, 
When the biggest world 
Threat was nuclear. 

The only extinct thing 
Was the Dodo, 
We consumed and junked. 
Then we were told about 
Droughts, and disappearing 
Rainforests. 
About melting ice caps, 
And we fought Iraq 
For a second time, 
Like father like son, 
We needed our oil 
Because we didn’t want 
Those electric cars. 
At one time there were 
Huge monsters that 
Walked where we walk, 
Nature swallowed them easy. 
Or maybe you believe 
It all started with Adam and Eve, 
But they too were kicked 
From the garden 
As are we, 
With our poison beaches 
Run down towns 
And our atmosphere 
That kills. 
I write a poem 

And preach to the converted. 
We send out loud messages 
To ourselves, 
That our world is dying: 
1984, Blade Runner, 
Armageddon, The Road. 
I’ve yet to read a book, 
Or watch a film about a future 
I’d like to live in. 
Fortunately for me, 
I’ll die before the earth, 
But I’d like a place for my 
Computer chip self 
To click and beep 

In bright, clean happiness. 

​

​

Maura Dooley, Still Life with Sea Pinks and High Tide, 2016

​

Thrift grows tenacious at the tide’s reach.
What is that reach when the water
is rising, rising?

Our melting, shifting, liquid world won’t wait
for manifesto or mandate, each
warning a reckoning.

Ice in our gin or vodka chirrups and squeaks
dissolving in the hot, still air
of talking, talking.

 

Matthew Olzmann, Letter to Someone Living 50 Years from Now, 2017

It begins with,

"Most likely, you think we hated the elephant,

the golden toad, the thylacine and all variations

of whale harpooned or hacked into extinction..."

For entire poem

 

Lynna Odel, November, 2020

It begins with,

"If I can't save us

then let me feel you

happy and safe

under my chin..."

For entire poem

​

Camille T Dungy, A Massive Dying Off, 2011 

It begins with,

 “When the fish began their dying you didn’t worry

      you bought new shoes...”

For entire poem

​

Molly Fisk, Particulate Matter,2018 (about the CA wildfires)

 It begins with,

“If all you counted were tires on the cars left in driveways and stranded beside the roads…” 

For entire poem