Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 5

April 25, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Part 5 of an Earth Day poem depicting the eventual destruction of the environment and the more environmentally friendly civilization that will follow, inspired by The Fifth World at https://thefifthworld.com/:

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 5

I dance the dance of the hawk.
I am the hawk, hovering over my prey,
Diving, diving to clutch it in my talons.
I am my prey, struggling to break free,
Knowing the terrible fate that awaits me,
The frightening fall when those talons let go,
The painful shock when I hit the rocks below,
The sharp beak shredding my dead body,
The delicious taste of my meat in the hawk's hungry craw.
And I will hunt and be the prey of others,
Dancing, dancing, in a dance that for this moment
Is completely all that I am.

I ride the wind over a narrow canyon.
A slender radioactive river twists painfully towards the sea.
Below me the canopy stretches from coast to coast,
From pole to pole, green islands in a swollen ocean.
The poisons still seep out of their decaying containers.
The Earth swallows them, embraces them, cooling, cooling,
Healing, healing for the next hundred million years.

At night, above us, the stars once again tell their stories,
Once again guide us on our journeys, reveal their beauty.
Once again our spirits sing in harmony with those around us.
Life itself is music, is dance, is grace, is a thing of beauty,
As it once was, as it is again, as it will remain forever.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/winds5.html. For more poems for Earth Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/earthdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Earth Day.
April 19: One Wishes Earth Were Not So Decimated
April 20: Endless Earths
April 21: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 1
April 22: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 2
April 23: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 3
April 24: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 4
April 25: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 5

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 4

April 24, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Part 4 of an Earth Day poem depicting the eventual destruction of the environment and the more environmentally friendly civilization that will follow, inspired by The Fifth World at https://thefifthworld.com/:

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 4

Then came a long convalescence, which many did not survive.
Seas stayed put, animals and plants emerged furtively,
Humankind bowed its collective head and vowed its collective vow:

Never again.

Never again to isolate their hearts.
Never again to use other humans,
To use other animals,
To use plants,
To modify the Earth.

Never again to hunt or gather without gratitude,
To breathe without awe,
To live without sacrifice,
To love without humility.

Never again.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/winds4.html. For more poems for Earth Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/earthdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Earth Day.
April 19: One Wishes Earth Were Not So Decimated
April 20: Endless Earths
April 21: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 1
April 22: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 2
April 23: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 3
April 24: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 4

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 3

April 23, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Part 3 of an Earth Day poem depicting the eventual destruction of the environment and the more environmentally friendly civilization that will follow, inspired by The Fifth World at https://thefifthworld.com/:

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 3

Eventually, Earth rebelled.
Gates were breached, selves flooded.
None could claim sovereignty, none could deny
That they were droplets in an angry ocean,
Spray that lashed a drowning shore.

Ah! How quickly I became we, and then wee,
Conscious of our inconsequence,
Too late to save the billions of lives
Leveraged by civilization.

Selves, attempting desperately to return to spirits,
Pounded on locked doors, not knowing how to get in.
Too late to learn a lifetime of disciplines, mysteries, rituals,
Of ways of living, loving, speaking, thinking, perceiving;
Too late to become a child again and be nurtured in humility and awe;
Too late to learn that freedom leads to slavery,
While servitude leads to different kinds of freedom.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/winds3.html. For more poems for Earth Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/earthdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Earth Day.
April 19: One Wishes Earth Were Not So Decimated
April 20: Endless Earths
April 21: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 1
April 22: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 2
April 23: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 3

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 2

April 22, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Part 2 of an Earth Day poem depicting the eventual destruction of the environment and the more environmentally friendly civilization that will follow, inspired by The Fifth World at https://thefifthworld.com/:

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 2

The original sin was the sin of self.
Self sprang from spirit and said:
I am I. I am not you.
From this falsehood came much evil.
Humans claimed dominion over the Earth,
Plowed deep wounds into the land, enslaved animals,
Enslaved their own brothers and sisters.

I am I. I am not you.

They poisoned the Earth for millennia,
Poisons that still leak from their cisterns,
From their white-hot chambers,
From their mounded waste,
From their drowned or buried ruins,
From their long-forgotten hearts.

I am I. I am not you.

Immediately, spirit was struck blind,
Became deaf, became dumb, became silent,
Could no longer hear the words of wolves,
The whispers of wild grain,
The songs of trees,
The passions of wildflowers;
Dwelt alone behind the borders of self,
Cut off from the spirits that surrounded it, besieged it,
From the ocean of spirit that thrashed against its walls,
From the love that waited at its gates.

I am I. I am not you.

But you are us.
You poisoned us,
You poisoned all of us
When you poisoned yourselves.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/winds2.html. For more poems for Earth Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/earthdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Earth Day.
April 19: One Wishes Earth Were Not So Decimated
April 20: Endless Earths
April 21: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 1
April 22: Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 2

Endless Earths

April 20, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

An Earth Day poem imagining our wandering the universe in search of a home once we have ruined the Earth:

Endless Earths! An infinite number spins
Around their suns, full of lusty life,
Revolving islands, with ravenous creatures rife,
The untouched Edens waiting for our sins.
How might we treat them better than our own
Despoiled Earth, once a garden grove,
As, banished to the stars, we restless rove,
Yearning for a place that feels like home.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/endles.html. For more poems for Earth Day, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/earthdaypoems.html.

This week’s theme: Earth Day.
April 19: One Wishes Earth Were Not So Decimated
April 20: Endless Earths

Poem of the Week

April 22, 2010 #578
 
Dear Subscriber:
 
This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Earth Day.
 
At the moment, you cannot see this poem on my site, Poems for Free. Google has for some reason tagged my site as dangerous because they found one instance today of a link on my site leading to a site that was infected with malware. I'm working with my host site and with Google to resolve the problem and will let you know when my site will be safe and available once again.

Sorry for the inconvenience. 

Yours,
 
Nick Gordon
 
Mountains mark the boundaries of our dreams.
Over them lies nothing more than Heaven.
Use them to take well your wistful measure,
Nor can you enter them without the pleasure
That comes from being dwarfed by one great given,
As Being becomes just the God it seems.
In awe one finds a tonic for the soul,
Needing to pay homage to the whole,
Silent angel swelling sacred streams.
 
© by Nicholas Gordon