Our Mother Earth

Our Mother Earth
(where birds once sung)

I. (i)
As pink blossoms fall upon the Earth
Two friends meet.

(ii)
A lone wild goose
Flying among the cliffs and mountains
Hears the echo of its plaintive calls searching
For its flock.

(iii)
Upon a sheer ice-clad cliff
A flower blooms
Sweet and fair.

(iv)
Shrouded within the mist
The waters of a vast Sound
Placid and tranquil.
The tide neither advancing nor retreating.
Where is the moon?

(v)
The northern glaciers steadily retreat
Their icy waters
Inexorably winding their way
Into the Sea.

II. (i)
The rainbow of colors
Within the Sea
Disappears.

(ii)
The forest fires
Rage unabated.

(iii)
Hurricanes sweep across the coasts
And the inlands are pierced
As if by a spear.

(iv)
Species of Botanical and Zoological Life
Into the Abyss of History
Race.

(v)
Floods and Droughts
Plague the Earth’s arable lands.

(vi)
The Ocean’s Waters rise, warm, and acidify.

(vii)
Increases in Intensity, Frequency and Volatility of Severe Weather
Haunt the Globe.

III. (i)
The Sage
Perceives problems others do not.
The Sage perceives
Relations of Effect and Cause

(ii)
The Demagogue
In his autocracy
Denies and dismisses
Causality within the
Orderliness of the Cosmos.

(iii)
All Progressive change
Depends upon the
Mobilization of the Idealism of Youth

(iv)
Upon Hope
Change Depends
The Perception of Beauty
In its manifold modes and moods
Is the foundation of Hope.

(v)
Like the Stars
Scattered across the heavens
The Beauty of the Earth
Is like Gardens of Gardens
Scattered across our Mother Earth

(vi)
Why I wonder
Are chauvinists perpetually blind
To chauvinism’s divisive consequences?

(vi)
Into all great rivers,
Multiplicities of Tributaries
Flow.

IV. (i)
All entities
Whether concrete acts of process and emergence
Or abstract entities
Dwell amid infinite communities.

(ii)
All finite spatio-temporal domains
Exist within infinite spatial domains
And eternal temporal extensiveness.

(iii)
All events
Perpetually emerge and perish
Within a continuum of communal creation.

(iv)
Wonder and humility
Remain as complimentary
Virtues of the human
Mind and spirit
Propelling Adventures of Discovery.

V. (i)
Tenderness and Courage
And cool-eyed Objectivity
Confronting civilizations contradictions
A Trinity of Virtues.

(ii)
Without the Integration of these Virtues
The vigor and vitality
Of our vulnerable Mother Earth
Cannot be restored.

(iii)
Integral Justice and Integral Ecology
Within a magnificent tapestry
Must be woven
If creative transformations
And Progressive Internationalism
Are to be attained
And Retrogressive decadence
Reversed.

VI.
Through the vast Sea
The giant tortoises
Swim in silence.

*Dedicated to Jesse on his graduation.
Dedicated to the futures of all Jesse’s peers from all nations, cultures, religions, races and genders.