Special Feature: Environmentally Conscious Haiku and Tanka for Climate Action Now

                                                     the globe balanced

                                                     on the back of a turtle

                                                     Earth Day

                                                         Selected Haiku, 2017 Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest

                                                                          Chen-ou Liu

                                                                          (FYI:This haiku alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle

                                                                                   that supports the earth on its back)

My Dear Friends:

US President Biden hosted a two-day Climate Change Summit of world leaders, which coincided with Earth Day, to address the global climate crisis. The President committed the US to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% below its 2005 emissions levels by 2030, emphasizing, "This will be 'decisive decade' for tackling climate change" (Matt McGrath, BBC News, April 22).

I would like to share with you the following environmentally conscious haiku and tanka to improve  our  awareness about environmental problems, spark new reflections, and add a new layer of complexity to pondering difficult questions raised in the  Summit. 

Selected Haiku and Tanka:

Earth Day

the world in a grain

of polymer

LeRoy Gorman

treasure hunting

in the Yamuna river

for your love

all I find is fear

mixed with plastic

Aruna Rao

each of them

wants a part of me

I am Antarctica

belonging to no one

yet bearing many flags

Kat Lehmann

black oil slick

washed up on the beach -- 

looking

in the dead dolphin’s eye

I see a part of myself

Lavana Kray

old pond

      oil slick rainbows

                    slip in

Lorin Ford

with the plastic bag

a stork wraps the moon

on its head

Ken Sawitri

Saharan dust

clouds my Texas sky

            strong winds

of uncertainty

sweep across the globe

Janet Lynn Davis

canyon stream

dried to a slit

of clear sky

Jane Reichhold

a tail of clouds

skims the Dragoon Mountains

in the river valley,

a plume of smoke rises

from the dynamite factory

Jari Thymian

bare hills

the horizon looped

between post and wire

Jo McInerney

first to bud

uprooted shrubs

in the landfill

LeRoy Gorman 

recycling centre

where to put the dreams

of yesterday

Sebastian Salie 

(r)egret along the riverbank acid rain

Marianne Paul

I follow the trickle

of this childhood creek

Earth Day

Chen-ou Liu