Cool Announcement: Environmentally Conscious Poems for the People's Climate March

As we all know, the world is involved in the largest movement in human history. We are at a pivotal turning point of rapid climate change.

-- Leonardo DiCaprio, UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

---- William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

My Dear Friends:

The People's Climate March is an international day of climate action, coinciding with the Ban Ki-Moon Emergency UN Climate Summit in New York, culminating in 2500 marches in 160 countries.

Share with you the following environmentally conscious poems published on NeverEnding Story to increase public awareness about environmental problems, spark new reflections, and add a new layer of complexity to pondering difficult questions raised by The People's Climate March.

an abandoned lot:

weeds tall as men, a shopping cart

Jack Galmitz 

Earth Day

the world in a grain

of polymer

LeRoy Gorman

after the earthquake --

the arch bridge

drops its shadow

onto the water

more distinctly

Aya Yuhki

Ilha Formosa (Beautiful Island)? 

Sendai earthquake ...

the darkness pierced

only by flashlights

At night, I toss and turn, worrying about the long-term health risks for Japan and its neighbors. My homeland, Taiwan, is one of the closest.

Fukushima at dawn --

one vending machine

still glowing

I remember during the late 1990s at the height of the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan, someone handed me a flyer on the street. It listed important instructions on how to survive a nuclear disaster. The last one on the list said: "When driving away in the rescue convoy, please remember to look back, because that will be your last sight of Taipei."

radioactive scare

this a world of dew

and yet ...

Chen-ou Liu

(Notes:1 In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it "Ilha Formosa," which means “Beautiful Island.” Taipei is its capital.

2 This poem is a revision of  Ilha Formosa?, which was first published in Sketchbook, 6:3, May/June 2011)

silence

seeks the center

of every tree and rock,

that thing we hold closest --

the end of songs

M.McClintock

I rest my paddle

let the canoe drift awhile

rocks     trees     sky

the lake and I

are an empty mirror

Irene Golas