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Sunday, April 25, 2021

Earth Day, Cont.

—Public Domain Photos
 


PATIENCE TAUGHT BY NATURE
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”

And still the generations of the birds

Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds

Serenely live while we are keeping strife

With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife

Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds

Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards

Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife

Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,

To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass

In their old glory. O thou God of old!

Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;—

But so much patience, as a blade of grass

Grows by contented through the heat and cold.
 
 
 

 
 
the earth is a living thing

is a black shambling bear
ruffling its wild back and tossing
mountains into the sea

is a black hawk circling
the burying ground circling the bones
picked clean and discarded

is a fish black blind in the belly of water
is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal

is a black and living thing
is a favorite child
of the universe
feel her rolling her hand
in its kinky hair
feel her brushing it clean

—Lucille Clifton
 
 
 

 
 
EARTH YOUR DANCING PLACE
—May Swenson

Beneath heaven's vault
re
member always walking

through halls of cloud

down aisles of sunlight

or through high hedges

of the green rain

walk in the world

highheeled with swirl of cape

hand at the swordhilt

of your pride

Keep a tall throat

Remain aghast at life
 


Enter each day

as upon a stage

lighted and waiting

for your step

Crave upward as flame

have keenness in the nostril

Give your eyes

to agony or rapture


 
Train your hands

as birds to be

brooding or nimble

Move your body

as the horses

sweeping on slender hooves

over crag and prairie

with fleeing manes

and aloofness of their limbs


 
Take earth for your own large room

and the floor of the earth

carpeted with sunlight

and hung round with silver wind

for your dancing place

________________________

—Medusa, remembering that every day is Earth Day ~
 
 
 
 
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