As War Rages, Flowers

A poem and plea for Earth Day

One of my favorite places on earth, the Blue Ridge Mountains

Here is a poem for the earth on Earth Day. Or maybe it is more of a reminder for people. As the war of modernity rages on, collapsing ecosystems and cultures around the planet, leaving those of us lucky enough to live in the first world purposeless, with meaningless work, in stupors of slave-like consumption, the only thing we can do is wake up and fight back. The proper place for this civilization is in hell. Or in history books with chapter titles indicating the ignorance of exploitive ages past. Wherever we contribute to this machine, we must find ways to cease, to drop out, and we must show others the path, not through anger or lecture, but by the love we show for nature, for ourselves, and for one another. We must, individually and in communities, find a better path forward. The lords of industry have abandoned us. Our protective agencies have failed us. They toxify the planet, attempt to feed us poison, and charge us for our detoxification treatments. They toy with destructive technologies and build bunkers in remote places. They do not work for the benefit of humanity and nature. No one is coming to save us. We must ally with the earth and destroy the systems that threaten our homelands.

We must make the machine falter. We must find ways to reduce its influence. We must halt what is unnecessary. Nature, in all her regenerative glory, will do the rest.

Happy Earth Day, everyone. I pledge allegiance to the living planet.

Yellow wild indigo (Baptisia sphaerocarpa) in my yard

As war rages, flowers

As war rages,

there are the flowers.

And the children,

like flowers,

never forget.

And in the ravaged

places, where the earth

is ripped apart,

sweet gums spring up

in April.

Where the dreadful

Machine of men

slows, at its edges,

grasses leap,

pave the surface, and

the wild begins

to replicate.

Nature, in its

obstinate disturbance,

floods the broken

heart of disharmony,

returns with purpose

the temporarily

disrupted, the forest

planet, the severed

circle, the creek with

walls of mosses.

The man who seeks

destruction

must not rest,

lest he be eaten.

The horrible sands,

all this growth

wraps round,

grinds at his gears.

As war rages,

there are the flowers.

Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting my work.

May the earth bless you today and every day.