I am the Earth - for Earth Day
I am the Earth and the fall of nations, the rising and the risen and the fires that never cease I am the ruined shores and the plastic island of your making that threatens the sparkle of a thousand suns tossed across the sea I am the great auk, and the leopard dying in the snow, the macro and micro, the killer and the killed and the harpooner of old Nantucket I am the bloom of every flower, the fall of every leaf, and the child in the photograph nearly dead and the vulture you cannot see I am the pain you all feel, the power that you stole in the night and the fatal hour that you will for your sons and daughters I am the melting ice and the long strides of the green incarnations who feed their brothers first I am the last breath of the white bear and the change that rests inside you I am the Earth