Earthday - World Poetry Day

Hi I am Milou,
I am a 9 year old student from Buenos Aires. Did you know that the 21st of March 2008 is World Poetry Day? I want to share this blog with students, kids and poets, writers and artists from all over the world to post a contribution for Earth Day. It would be great if you could join me and post here a link that connects to a relevant poem, text/article, picture/art with environmental content on your web site for Earth Day. Please put a back link on your site to World Poetry Day to get it rolling. If you don't have a web site you can post your contribution here.
Thanks, Milou

About Earth Day Network

Earth Day Network is a driving force steering environmental awareness around the world. Through Earth Day Network, activists connect, interact, and have an impact on their communities, and create positive change in local, national, and global policies. EDN's international network reaches over 17,000 organizations in 174 countries, while the domestic program engages 5,000 groups and over 25,000 educators coordinating millions of community development and environmental protection activities throughout the year. Earth Day is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half billion people participate in our campaigns every year.

I am of the earth
She is my mother
She bore me with pride
She reared me with love
She cradled me each evening
She pushed the wind to make it sing
She built me a house of harmonious colors
She fed me the fruits of her fields
She rewarded me with memories of her smiles
She punished me with the passing of time
And at last when I long to leave
She will embrace me for eternity.



Anna Lee Walters
b. 1946

I remember asking (in my head) what was life for, why did anyone (or anything) live, and why did I live. At that point death to me was a word that represented very little fear. I had seen things die, animals and such, and I heard of people dying and saw evidence of it. I remember thinking that from what I could tell or see, there were only two things that were "real", and the wonder of both: life and death.

--Talking Indian: Reflections on Survival and Writing
Biography / Criticism
More about Anna Lee Walters on Nativewiki


I hope you like it, Milou:-)

Find more videos like this on Earth Day

It makes me ashamed
'Cause of crime and destruction
Mother Earth suffers

But one day a year
We help animals and care
Since nature is rare

If we care for earth
We'll have a healthy nature
Like on nature's birth

I wish that our world
Our life, our space, our nature
Were one unity

Happy Earthday,
Milou

Plant a tree
Watch a bee
Go clean up the
Sea!!
Let's leave our planet
to be,
What it intends to be
So we, and all life
Can Be ........

EARTHDAY 2008 by BONNIE PELTON

Our forests are dying,
Our lakes are drying,
Mother Earth is crying,
and we must start trying!

Trying to save our Earth
giving back what it''s worth,
toward a new day of
REBIRTH!!!

Join the millions of people world wide,
to begin to live with pride,
while waste begins to subside,
and conservation is taken in stride.

Use paper, not plastic bags,
Recycle clothing to use as rags,
Re-do, repair, re-dream,
Don''t buy new, buy green!

Walk or share a ride,
Conserve water town wide,
read a book, or play a game,
Live in peace without shame.

We must begin today,
there is no time to delay,
Mother Earth is needing you to pray,

On This 2008, Earth Day!

Artists, writers and poets contributions for Earthday! - Tell the World

Tell the world what you're doing for Earth Day (and beyond) by uploading a message to our Earth Day '08 site. Get together with friends, family or coworkers, grab a camera, and take five minutes to put yourselves on the map. From the everyday to the extraordinary, we want to hear about your plans to take on climate change and make our planet a greener place.
Tell the world, Milou

Find more photos like this on Earth Day

Email from a small blue planet:

Desperately seeking anyone willing to listen. This is mother earth calling humanity…is there anyone out there? Repeat…is anyone there? You have sacked my treasures, burned my kingdoms, soured my waters, maimed, injured and utterly laid waste my vast resources… Is anyone there…
You have wreaked havoc on my sacred forests and set traps and snares to catch my prized animals. You have shot pure acid into my atmosphere and generated tons of toxic wastes that will not be diluted even a million years from now…my veins, the rivers of this planet are tainted with every poisonous thing known to man. Are you hearing me?

You have put wealth and fast moving machines ahead of the sacredness of life and family, neglect, poverty and illness run unchecked through my humankind. You have justified wars without cause, and hatred without basis, you have turned a blind eye to the starving, the destitute, the old and the infirm. You have raise up generations that have no value for life, who see no sacredness even in the breath of their own parents or children, you have allowed the massacre of millions simply because they live in places you never heard of and have no interest in. Are you there? You can't hide you know I hear your ever breathe! You can't run away, you can't escape the TRUTH of what you have done. I gave you speech in the hopes that you would become the keepers of my kingdoms and that you show respect to she who bore you, but no…now you have no use for me, you would rather play with your fancy machines, drive over my face in you pollution vehicles, watch endless hours of meaningless tripe on the Television, turn up the volume, turn out the fact, turn a blind eye…well, guess what you have put yourselves in danger!

Ah, now I see you are listening…you didn't like that did you? TRUTH hurts! Especially when you know that you should be doing something about it…some of the children are starting to awaken, they see clearly what is coming, This nice mother you have, this 'little blue planet' as you so fondly call me is very ill, any day now it will become apparent that either you all must begin to work to get me healthy or someone better find another place to live! There is no more time left to work on solutions, all of you should know what needs to happen, that is if you would take a good look around you,,, when was the last time you actually took a walk with nature? No I am not suggesting that you run out to one of those Natural Food places and start buying supplies, I am suggesting that you should go touch the face of this dear old mother of yours, feel the earth, look at your sky, see what you have done!

Ah, are you uncomfortable? Too bad, so am I! My forest have been ruined and I need some fresh air, my rivers, lakes, oceans and streams are polluted and I desperately need fresh water. There are land fills bulging with your endless disposable this and that’s and quite honestly it makes it difficult for me to redistribute soil where it is so desperately needed. In once lovely Africa there is no safe place for many of my creatures, and in some places there not even the humans are behaving as if they had a brain.
What is it going to take for all of you to take a day to just be with me, look at me, speak with me, and begin to dialogue with me in meaningful ways? Would the world as you know it come to an end if everyone just took a full 24 hours and tried to learn about all the things you could be doing individually to help me? Sorry lot of offspring you all are can't even help out your old mom when she needs tending to!

How much longer are you going to continue to let the haters of this world keep on making hate, how much longer are you going to pretend that everything is alright? •

This is the letter of a desperate and albeit old woman, and I demand to know what you intend to do! Enough with meetings and reports, enough with organization and affiliations, enough with all of things that you think will work! How about this for an idea, everyone just sit down for one day and discuss what must be done to save me, before it is too late!

Hello Everyone,
I'm donating one of my songs to everyone for Earth Day. The song is appropriately called "Bridging The Gap". There is an underlying theme all the way through that our world needs some healing and some patching up pretty badly, and it touches base on the fact that our govt. needs serious reform, and that is obviously all connected to the damaged state of the Earth. I try and tell stories through the music itself without words, however for this one there are some samples I threw in (legally), to help emphasize the message. One sample at the end is of Mr. Ted Glick speaking the truth at a C.C.C. conference about the atrocious behavior and suppression of scientific evidence.

Thanks Brad for your support!
You will find Brads's music "Bridging The Gap" on the right, just click the Earthday player and enjoy.

Ted Glick: Man in Action

I am a lover of many many fruits
Vegetables, grains even roots
From carrots to grapes
Bananas and dates
And organic botanic fig shoots

Earth Day comes but one time a year
But our carbon footprints don't disappear
Let's take back the earth
Call it a rebirth
We're standing boldly on the edge of the frontier

Celebrate Earth Day.
Plant a birch or maple tree
Shade for tomorrow.

The rain forests wane,
birds disperse into thin air,
flee colorful ghosts.

Halt global warming!
There's nothing more important,
'cept global cooling.

I though these were pretty cool nature poems by Li Po:

Talk in the Mountains

You ask me, `Why dwell among green mountains?'
I laugh in silence; my soul is quiet.
Peach blossom follows the moving water;
Here is a heaven and earth, beyond the world of men.

Silent Night

Moonlight floods the end of my bed.
I wonder, has frost fallen?
Sitting up, I look at the moon.
Lying back, I think of home.

Summer in the mountains

Too lazy to shift my white feather fan
I lie naked in the green woods.
Hanging my hat on a rock,
I bare my head to the breeze in the pines.

(Li Po, Chinese, 701-762, versions I.M.)

In the little town of Marden
There was a neat and tiny garden
In the garden was a tree
That was happy, kind, and free

In the tree there was a bird
Whose call was very often heard
On the bird there was a flea
That lived so very happily

But don’t let this be a trick
For the flea was very sick

It killed the bird
It killed the tree
It killed the garden
And then the flea
Killed the rest of the our world
By jumping on a different bird

So ALARM! WATCH OUT! BEWARE!
And take very special care
Because this tiny little flea
Can end up being YOUR destiny

Gaia

dancing comes full circle

this world has been there
from a long long time
reptiles inhabited it,
we came along much much later.
seasons come and go,
air swirl about, dancing-
thunders bring about rains,
which disappear into
womb of the earth.
dried seeds travel far and wide
uniting the world in a way
incomprehensible to humanity.
mountains stand tall
with a disdained look.
the sea centres in the midst,
hiding unfathomable secrets-
sometimes throwing those at our faces
with shimmering rage.
the world would still exist
(even when we all disintegrate into nothing)
with new life forms,
newer dimensions.

"are we having a sense of Déjà vu?”

Be The Best That You Could Be

And If fate will not make you any,

Then be just the soil maybe.

A fertile soil where seeds

Of herbs and weeds

And shrubs and trees grow.

Somehow, in them you may live;

You will bring them life ~

Becoming the best that you could be.

~

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here live a great street sweeper who did his job so well. ~Martin Luther King

And when I die strew my dust-remains in the earth so trees may grow.

Burning Ice

The mountains here reach higher than air
like bony fingers groping into the sky
and fleshed with glaciers. Fire is winning.
The peaks bleed melting ice, drained
by dragon rivers lined with hungry mouths
to the south and east. There is never enough.



The jealous ghosts of the Takla Makan
howl on the wings of perpetual sandstorms
smothering oases, filling in wells
erasing the faint traces of desert roads
burying houses, forcing whole towns to move
or die of thirst. There is never enough.



Brahmaputra. Ganges. Huang He. Indus.
Irrawaddy. Mekong. Salween. Yangtze.



Peace? Not while the boundary line snakes
among the peaks, ignoring the flow-lines.
Like linked fingers on opposing hands
need stretches across the border.
On both sides, there is never enough.

Sources:
Global Warming and Climate Change
Central Ganga Authority
Environment News Services

Nature

Now is the time that Nature is

World Stripped Away

Strip mall upon strip mall;
At landscapes they eat.
Strip mine affected
With ruinous feat.

Clearing a pathway;
Once was beauteous living.
Now all’s gone for sale,
Passed to builders we’re giving.

No room left for moving.
Traffic a curse.
Each new built construction;
Our world’s all the worse.

Short term the thinking,
Short-sighted gains;
Space since restricted
As clean living wanes.

Politicians so foolish
In the ratables chased.
Redundant; unneeded;
Our planet’s defaced.

More land since been spoiled
With each plow into dirt.
Every tree lost to clearing
Is our future we hurt.

Polluting the rivers
Equals life to extinction.
Smog fills the heavens.
Is this man’s lone distinction?

The world’s all connected;
As this sphere sees reduction;
Exploiting life’s circle
Is a slow self-destruction.

Copyright SGW 2004