April 22, 2007

Earth Day 2007



Save the Earth

I am old.
Been there since time eternal.
Mother of all species.
Respected, revered, restored, and reaped
in times forgotten. But now..
eroded, evacuated, embedded, and raped;
Droughts and earthquakes are worries no more.

Darfur, Iraq, Israel, and Hiroshima,
All but parts of me.
Dented and cracked irreparably.
I cry, weep, hurt, yell, and scream.
Divided, amputated, suffocated, and mutilated,
searching a lebensraum
in my very own universe.
while my progeny tightens my noose.

13 comments:

AVIANA said...

Beautiful haunting poetry...thank you for the reminder of earthday. I think this year, more people are actually aware of a day called earth day and those who already knew about it are more sensitive to the meaning behind this day.

I hope earth day eventually turns into earth life... Meaning, people will be aware and sensitive to the environment as a way of life not just for one day....

Lisa

A.H. said...

A lively flow of words...a fine weighting of syllables, with real impact. Enjoyed reading this. Best wishes.

Anonymous said...

The Earth will be perfectly OK regardless what temp. it is at or how much ice there is. All YOU are concerned with is your own personal little habitats. Your worried that you may be personally inconvenienced, this is selfishness at its worst.
Who cares whether it is natural or man made… either way the earth is changing.
Those who live to blame this on man do so cause if they are right, in their tiny frightened minds it means they can fix it…. This is the same arrogance that got us to where we are today.

You decided to play(too much) and now you realized there are reactions to you actions. Just sit back and enjoy yourselves it appears that’s all people are good for anyway.
Know in your hearts that the Earth will be here long after we are gone and life (maybe no humans) will flourish as it always has.

Tyler Goines
4-22-07

Anonymous said...

This is a beautiful poem - in the second stanza, it personifies the earth in a way that speaks to me incredibly strongly. Thank you for writing it.
As for Mr. Tyler Goines, I am afraid I don't follow his reasoning at all. First, while it is true that the earth, as a spinning sphere of mass, will remain regardless of how badly we mistreat it (at least with our current technological abilities), the ecosystems that we destroy as a result of our mistreatment will likely never come back. Also, his point about personal inconvenience makes absolutely no sense. It is, in fact, a personal inconvenience to alter our lifestyles towards more environmentally sustainable levels as it would be substantially easier to remain the energy-consuming Americans that we currently are. Furthermore, while it is technology that brought us to this point (Industrial Revolution, etc.), what does he think will help us go back up the slope down which we are sliding - divine intervention? Finally, on a funnier note, I get the sense that Mr. Goines considers himself not human, as he continually refers to the selfishness of humans saving the earth for "their" own purposes as something with which he has nothing to do.
Again, thank you for the poem. It (and the aforementioned comment) was a vivid reminder of how far we have come and how far we still have to go.
-SR

Sh'shank said...

Dearest Id
Its astounding and not just the poetry but all that you conveyed through the poem and some lil that I Percieved...
U have been keeping urself scarce from blogs of lesser mortals quite sometime now... a click away is all that these are now
Prickster's Fiefdom
Desi
----
I would pick the second pic...
Its fantastic.
----
Namesake...
So many of my friends have expressed their disdain at the movie was awaiting your review to see if it was a common trend...
I stilll have to catch it though...

Anonymous said...

Men building trees of steel,

and men fighting for a day's meal.

Would they save Earth?

It's now a question of who perishes first, earth or earthlings?

crumbs said...

"while my progeny tightens my noose."

that is an extremely powerful line there id. u seem to have a knack of saying extremely uncomfortable truths in a rather sincere manner :)

but as much as i hate tyler goines' disdain i agree with one point-that we wouldn't see so much of lack of concern if we didnt think that the world will be there long after we are gone.all those numbers and stats dont make any effect, coz we resolutely ignore the fact that just coz earth has been around since forever (our forever atleast) DOES not mean that it will remain here forever too.in a manner, we have already lost some of it-i hardly see a star studded sky in the city anymore-all that is there is a few scattered stars across a murky purple sky.
perhaps it is too late to repair the damage, but is it that we need to be pushed against the wall to stop?
on a different note, u never respond to the comments on ur blog, against ur political believes? ;P

Anonymous said...

yep i have read A fine Balance. i guess we have discussed this once before.... infact i never had a clue abt the similarity.. but now as you said it, my first chapter that is due has a "stunning" similarity.. i gotto rethink i guess :) thanks for this

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Poem! I enjoyed very much reading it.

starry said...

You have expressed so much in this poem.so much that we have to be aware of.I hope people would be more sensitive to the earth and the people who inhabit the earth and make it a good place for future generations.

Anonymous said...

well isn't there a delay in posting this time ? :)

Nandi23 said...

very dismal, but sadly too true:(

EXSENO said...

Absolutely awesome. Did you write this one too.