Poem 1:

Ode to Mother Earth

a poem by

Dominique Heathcote

She’s gathered up the sea-shells,

The pebbles and the stones,
And with her battered suitcase
She’s on her way back home.
The rivers, seas and oceans
She’s poured them into jars
She’s lifted down the sun and moon
and taken down the stars.
She’s folded up the blankets, of lavender and moss,
And packed away the summer showers, the early morning frost.
She’s gently picked the flowers, the bushes and the trees,
She’s wrapped the hills and valleys in bundles tied with leaves.
And deep within her suitcase the Seasons safely lie,
The Summer, Spring and Autumn, with Winter by her side.
And each and every twilight is delicately placed,
Among the rays of sunset and moonlight’s gentle face.
The insects, birds and animals, wait patiently in line,
They all are leaving with her, they won’t come back this time.
She turns around and glances, at those she leaves behind,
That glittering, superior race,
Bewildered human-kind.

Source: https://www.aftermathmag.org/
I Don't Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We've Done to the Earth

Fatimah Asghar

so I count my hopes: the bumblebees

are making a comeback, one snug tight
in a purple flower I passed to get to you;

your favorite color is purple but Prince’s

was orange & we both find this hard to believe;
today the park is green, we take grass for granted

the leaves chuckle around us; behind

your head a butterfly rests on a tree; it’s been
there our whole conversation; by my old apartment

was a butterfly sanctuary where I would read

& two little girls would sit next to me; you caught
a butterfly once but didn’t know what to feed it

so you trapped it in a jar & gave it to a girl

you liked. I asked if it died. you say you like
to think it lived a long life. yes, it lived a long life.

Mother Earth

© Sophia E. Valdez
Published: October 2, 2019

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/mother-earth-7

The land is in a constant state of birth,

Giving life to all who live on Earth.
Our carelessness and fears
Have taken a toll over the years.
Her land is parched and scorched
As man continues to light the torch.
We continue a want of speed and ease,
All while our pesticides kill off our bees.
It's time to wake up and see Mother Earth's pain.
Humanity's selfishness is becoming insane.
Soon her cries will turn to gloom,
And man will cause its own doom.
 Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County

Jay Parini

The maples sweat now, out of season.

Buds pop eyes in wintry bushes
as the birds arrive, not having checked
the calendars or clocks. They scramble
in the frost for seeds, while underground
a sobbing starts in roots and tubers.
Ice cracks easily along the bank.
It slides in gullies where a bear, still groggy,
steps through coiled wire of the weeds.
Kids in T-shirts run to school, unaware
that summer is a long way off.
Their teachers flirt with off-the-wall assignments,
drum their fingers on the sweaty desktops.
As for me, my heart leaps high—
a deer escaping from the crosshairs,
skipping over barely frozen water
as the surface bends and splinters underfoot.

London

William Blake (1757-1827)

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
 Dear Matafele Peinem

By Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

Dear matafele peinam,

You are a seven-month old sunrise of gummy smiles

You are bald as an egg and bald as the buddha
You are thighs that are thunder and shrieks that are lightning
so excited for bananas, hugs and
our morning walks past the lagoon

Dear matafele peinam,

I want to tell you about that lagoon

that lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging against the sunrise

Men say that one day

that lagoon will devour you

They say it will gnaw at the shoreline

chew at the roots of your breadfruit trees
gulp down rows of your seawalls
and crunch your island’s shattered bones

They say you, your daughter

and your granddaughter, too
will wander rootless
with only a passport to call home

Dear matafele peinam,

Don’t cry
Mommy promises you
No one
will come and devour you

No greedy whale of a company sharking through political seas

no backwater bullying of businesses with broken morals
no blindfolded bureaucracies gonna push
this mother ocean over
the edge

No one’s drowning, baby

No one’s moving
No one’s losing
their homeland
no one’s gonna become
a climate change refugee

or should i say
no one else

to the Carteret islanders of papua new guinea

and to the Taro islanders of the Solomon Islands
I take this moment
to apologize to you
we are drawing the line here

Because baby we are going to fight

your mommy daddy
bubu jimma your country and president too
we will all fight

and even though there are those

hidden behind platinum titles
who like to pretend
that we don’t exist
that the Marshall Islands
Tuvalu
Kiribati
Maldives
and typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
and floods of Pakistan, Algeria, Colombia
and all the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidal waves
didn’t exist

still
there are those
who see us

Hands reaching out

fists raising up
banners unfurling
megaphones booming
and we are
canoes blocking coal ships
we are
the radiance of solar villages
we are
the rich clean soil of the farmer’s past
we are
petitions blooming from teenage fingertips
we are
families biking, recycling, reusing,
engineers dreaming, designing, building,
artists painting, dancing, writing
and we are spreading the word

and there are thousands out on the street

marching with signs
hand in hand
chanting for change NOW

and they’re marching for you, baby

they’re marching for us

because we deserve to do more than just

survive
we deserve
to thrive

Dear matafele peinam,

you are eyes heavy

with drowsy weight
so just close those eyes, baby
and sleep in peace

because we won’t let you down

you’ll see