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

Windsong for a Healing Earth: Part 1

April 21, 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 1 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 1

This song is a whisper of wind,
The groan of a tree trunk,
The patter of raindrops on leaves,
The buzz of bees buried in bluebells,
The burst of birdsong at dawn,
The breathless silence of sunset,
The canopy of stars above the canopy of forest
Seen from an outcrop high above the forest floor.

Why song?
The sounds of Earth are beautiful enough.
Why painting?
The flowers are beautiful enough.
Why dance?
The bound of a gazelle is beautiful enough.
Why stories?
Our lives are beautiful enough.

Surrender, surrender, surrender,
And you shall become a spring
Gushing up from the bowels of the earth,
Watering the wild garden of the world.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/winds1.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

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

One Wishes the Earth Were Not So Decimated

April 19, 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 about the environmental damage of overpopulation:

One wishes Earth were not so decimated:
Viscera ripped open, entrails exposed,
Eden stripped bare, over-cultivated,
Returning cash crops as demand explodes.
Poor Earth! Raped and forced to bear the children,
Of whom but few can find milk at her breasts.
Poor children! Forced to wrestle with their brethren,
Undernourished brood of the unblessed.
Let Earth be, O humans! Let her be!
All of you, reduce your numbers now!
The Earth's goods could be shared more equally
If there were wealth enough to go around.
One wishes there were fewer to care more,
Needing less, that time might Earth restore.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/onewi.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

Erase My Soul

April 18, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Ramadan, which begins on April 13.

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

A poem for Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr about the peace that comes from erasing oneself through prayer:

Erase my soul and let me be
Invisible as air.
Detain me in Your emptiness
And let me be just prayer.
Let my passion disappear;
Focus well my mind.
Immerse me in infinity
Till at peace I turn to see
Ramadan behind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/erasem.html. For more poems about Ramadan, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Ramadan.
April 12: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World
April 13: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within
April 14: Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep
April 15: Reason Is No Cause for Revelation
April 16: Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith
April 17: Rights Are Not Equivalent to Freedom
April 18: Erase My Soul

Rights Are Not Equivalent to Freedom

April 17, 2021

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Ramadan, which begins on April 13.

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

A poem for Ramadan about how the individual shapes and is shaped by society:

Rights are not equivalent to freedom.
All have claims upon the lives of all.
Make yourself a servant of the kingdom,
Acting in the interests of the whole.
Deeds are sermons preached upon the plain
As each from each has much to lose or gain;
Nor is faith the free choice of one soul.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/rights.html. For more poems about Ramadan, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html.

This week’s theme: Ramadan.
April 12: Ramadan Reminds Us that the World
April 13: Rapture Comes Most Easily Within
April 14: Read the Holy Book as Though Asleep
April 15: Reason Is No Cause for Revelation
April 16: Righteousness Remains the Rock of Faith
April 17: Rights Are Not Equivalent to Freedom