Our Environment in Poem

    Poetry - Literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound and rhythm. (Britannica)

The International Day for Education 2021 was celebrated on January 24 with the theme “Recover and Revitalize Education for the COVID-19 Generation”. In her message to mark the occasion, the Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay pointed out that the pandemic proved that “...education was a global public good and school was more than just a place of learning: it was also a place that provided protection, well-being, food and freedom.” She went on to emphasize the immense power of quality education as a tool for achieving global peace and development by reducing hunger and gender inequality.

What better way to promote education and the right to a sustainable future than through written word, skillfully coined to create an awareness of our collective environmental experience?

The cost of our “modern” life weighs heavily on the environment and, this weight is evident in the changes which Earth’s climate and ecological systems are forced to grapple with daily. Since the era of the industrial revolution, poets have written about the polluting effects of industrialization.

I found some beautifully written, poems that elucidate the power and pain of our “modern” life. Enjoy!

1. Goodbye, Goldeneye. Written by May Swenson

Rags of black plastic, shred of a kite
caught on the telephone cable above the bay
has twisted in the wind all winter, summer, fall.

Leaves of birch and maple, brown paws of the oak
have all let go but this. Shiny black Mylar
on stem strong as fish-line, the busted kite string

whipped around the wire and knotted—how long
will it cling there? Through another spring?
Long barge nudged up the channel by a snorting tug,

it’s blunt front aproned with rot-black tires—
what is being hauled in slime-green drums?
The herring gulls that used to feed their young

on the shore—puffy, wide-beaked babies standing
straddle-legged and crying—are not there this year.
Instead, steam shovel, bulldozer, cement mixer

rumble over sand, beginning the big new beach house.
There’ll be a hotdog stand, flush toilets, trash—
plastic and glass, greasy cartons, crushed beer cans,

barrels of garbage for water rats to pick through.
So, goodbye, goldeneye, and grebe and scaup and loon.
Goodbye, morning walks beside the tide tinkling

among clean pebbles, blue mussel shells and snail
shells that look like staring eyeballs. Goodbye,
kingfisher, little green, black crowned heron,

snowy egret. And, goodbye, of faithful pair of
swans that used to glide—god and goddess
shapes of purity—over the wide water.

2. Earth Summit. Written by Oliver Tearle

All gifts are off: for this stolen spark of power

the world rebelled and asked for something back.

He cheated. Man enjoyed playing with fire

too much, thought little of him on his rock,

chained and consumed. The air grew hot and dark.

 

Among her luggage-landfall was a jar.

Unstopped, it filled the world with strains so high

they burnt through layers beyond our atmosphere.

Human in truth but filling air and sky,

she looked to others to say she was okay.

 

Mere mortals, of course, they could do little but take

her hand and stop it up again. Such is life.

After, the world erupting in the fire it took,

they played for time, tried turning the lights off.

They hoped against hope that it would be enough.

3. DEEP GREEN (Once upon a forest). Written by the renowned Nigerian poet, Niyi Osundare.

Deep green, my testament, as I forage

through this forest of vanished glories,

my memory one shell of naked echoes

 

Roots have shriveled in

earth’s heat-harassed crypt

blighted leaves float in the wind

like flakes of careless scars

 

Long-limbed lumbermen have

laid low the loins of the land;

the Yes-I birds have left

with their rainbow songs

 

The desert marches towards the sea,

a haughty, implacable army . . .

 

Once (not too long ago)

I talked to trees in this forest

and trees talked back to me,

Deep green

How beautiful! How poignant, still!

Hope will not remedy the foundation humankind is building.

Our concerted commitment in words and actions is what is needed to build the global sustainable advancement that is the objective of the Sustainable Development Goals.

What poem was your favourite?

Are you inspired to live more sustainably?

What changes can you make today to support our environment?

You are welcome to share other poems and ideas. I would love to read them.

 

Sources.

✅  https://www.britannica.com/art/poetry

      ✅  https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/educationday

      ✅  https://www.elyricsworld.com/goodbye,_goldeneye_lyrics_may_swenson.htm

      ✅  https://calenturepoems.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/earth-summit-a-poem-about-climate-change-pandoras-box

      ✅  https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/deep-green-12577