Special Feature: Haiku and Tanka Selected for the COP26 Summit

                                                                                         a bomb cyclone

                                                                                         lashing the seashore with winds

                                                                                         rain and high-walled surf ...

                                                                                         after the fight a chasm

                                                                                         between her life and my dream

                                                                                          

FYI: A bomb cyclone is a rapidly strengthening storm with central pressure that plummets by 24 millibars or more within 24 hours. The lower the pressure, the more powerful the storm.

The environmental is personal and the personal is behavioral. -- Chen-ou Liu

My Dear Readers:

The COP26 summit in Glasgow opened last Sunday, kicking off two weeks of intense diplomatic negotiations by almost 200 countries on how to tackle the common challenge of global warming.

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:

permafrost

a polar bear’s paws

sink deeper

Debbie Strange

winter sunshine ...

a polar bear

                   d r i f t i n g  o f f

Chen-ou Liu

FYI: The Arctic has warmed three times more quickly than the planet as a whole, and faster than previously thought, a report warned... The alarming finding comes from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) in a report timed to coincide with a ministerial meeting this week of the Arctic Council in Reykjavik, which gathers countries bordering the region.... Phys.org, May 20, 2021

the cameras

of a privileged few

focus

on the polar bears

stepping towards extinction

Keitha Keyes

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

a new rock,

plastiglomerate

litters the shore --

will the words I leave behind

also survive the seas?

(plastiglomerate: melted plastic trash mixed with beach sediment and debris)

Janet Lynn Davis

dry season --

we haul echoes

from the well

Carl Seguiban

bare hills

the horizon looped

between post and wire

Jo McInerney

I follow the trickle

of this childhood creek

Earth Day

Chen-ou Liu

To conclude today's Special Feature post, I would like to share with you the following reflective tanka about a sense of oneness with nature:

I rest my paddle

let the canoe drift awhile

rocks     trees     sky

the lake and I

are an empty mirror

Irene Golas 

Happy Reading

Chen-ou

FYI: Tech Won’t Save Us. Shrinking Consumption Will, Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee, Nov. 3

Since 1995 there have been 25 global conferences on climate change. At every one our so-called political leaders have kicked the can down the road and sung from a bright green hymnbook...