Posted in Environment/Deep Ecology/Climate Change

The Chalice, a poem by John Anstie

Dear Earth, you are a sacred aqueous Isle
in a dark and endless sea of universe.
You may never reveal your strategy.
We may be  bound  by  genetic code
to the presupposing chemical destiny
of one great astrophysical master plan
for all living things. We, who represent
your malaise,  your chronic infestation;
we,  like a fleeting itch in your long life,
will never comprehend it.  But, in truth
you know too well  that  we can never
understand more  than one percent
of all there is to know. You contain
the knowledge that is beyond us.
We are but a rash on your skin.

One day, we know you will
raze all of our delusions,
prepare us for the day
when a blinding light
will  inoculate  you
and inform us  of
a moment when
extant humans
will, at last be
prepared to
distinguish
the  l i e s
f r o m
truth
and

so
we
a r e
m e r e
a t o m i c
p  a  r  t  i  c  l  e  s
inside   a   temporal   chalice

© 2014 John Anstie
All rights reserved

Posted in Environment/Deep Ecology/Climate Change

Moon Child, a poem by John Anstie

Once in a while you exceed yourself.
Are you blue, because we thought no more of you
as the driving force for life on Earth
or potency behind the waves of bitches and whelps
giving us thrilling moments or contemplative
of a thriving, muddy, salty, riverine universe of life
waiting for you to draw the tidal covers
repeatedly over the fruits of our sustenance.

A force of nature, fully formed
yet so much smaller than the mother of your birth,
you hold sway, in countless ways
you touch our lives and drive us through our days.
Humble, unassuming, even unnoticed
by those who hurtle, mindlessly, and make no time
for the wisdom of our insignificance
or feel the difference between our age and yours.

As necessity tramples over truth
most days, we hide in fear of the darkening,
of the madness that ensues.
Does not the hunter choose your waning dark
to spike the nervous memory,
remind us of the feral wolf pack?
We may not ever tame you, but
your mother is dying a slow and painful death.

Oh super blood blue moon,
does not your God and our God sing the same tune?

© 2018 John Anstie
All rights reserved

Posted in Environment/Deep Ecology/Climate Change

The Planet Speaks, a poem by Carolyn O’Connell

Deforestation in the Maranhão state of Brazil, 2016, courtesy of Operação Hymenaea, Julho/2016 under CC BY 2.0

“We’re fighting for soil, land, food, trees, water, birds. We’re fighting for life.” Gregorio Mirabal, Indigenous leader and coordinator of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA)



the Amazon burns! No one
quells the fires
air; knowledge is lost in the fire.
Waters run polluted! No one
seeks to free fish
or children drinking poison.
Air spins in cyclones
destroying all under its twisting cloud
flooding the earth.
Metal is used to make war
peoples flee
are called predators by those who’ve only known comfort.
Are we but people
whatever language colour, creed
we came from one source?
But will expire
in our own detritus
unless we care for our planet
which will spin
into the void of extinction
unless we care for it and others.

© 2019, Carolyn O’Connell

Posted in Environment/Deep Ecology/Climate Change

Shadow Cycles, a poem by Sheikha A.

“What use will money and wealth be to those who possess them when the rivers and land are poisoned, the seas devoid of life and the air polluted beyond tolerance?” Luke Eastwood, The Journey: Exploring the Spiritual Truth at the Heart of the World’s Religions



Autumn falls on lids
of summer as brown kohl;
dust sticks to formica – dim
laminates – dreary clouds

not heavy enough to pour,
sun sleeps without sheets,
stars bulge like heat-wombs
ready to expel – air bites

like bugs-scratched land;
necks of trees on blade of axe,
green silky bands of crowns
shorn – barks planked, piled

with their withered parts; dry
weeds irrigate soil’s uterus,
roots stoned like cracked clay;
dusk smudges like mascara-

tears, rooms bleak from
smog – homes invaded by
carbon – moon drowns in
a sea of smouldering char.

© 2019, Sheikha A.

Posted in Environment/Deep Ecology/Climate Change

Greta Thunberg on the power of a movement, PBS interview

Posted in Environment/Deep Ecology/Climate Change

U.S. Citizens: U.S. House Select Committee Requests Input on Climate Policy from Key Stakeholders

The U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis launched a formal request for information as it drafts policy recommendations for Congress. The committee’s questions for stakeholders are posted at climatecrisis.house.gov/inforequest.

The committee is slated to submit legislative recommendations to Congress in March of 2020 and a final report by December. It requests feedback by November 22, 2019.

116th Congress.

Editorial note: Stakeholders are defined as: local, state, and tribal governments, businesses, academic institutions, non-profits, and all residents of the United States, including a rising generation of young people who are demanding climate action now.