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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