LOVE YOUR MOTHER

for Anthony Leiserowitz

  Now climate scientists have certified
  we’ve set upon a course that’s bound toward doom:
  this planet’s biosphere cannot abide
  our ravages, and now grave dangers loom
  as atmospheric temperature ascends.

  Because of greenhouse gasses we’ve let loose,
  great havoc will ensue, and lest we cleanse
  emission systems, we’ll soon cook our goose.

  Detractors, though, make light of such forecasts,
  ignoring valid evidence as bunk,
  a reckless crew of duped iconoclasts
  whose propaganda guarantees we’re sunk—
  unless we rectify our wayward course,
  treating our ravaged planet with remorse.



http://billmoyers.com/segment/anthony-leiserowitz-on-making-people-care-about-climate-change/

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 BROODING

    I meditate, I ruminate and then
    I cogitate—as if I were a hen
    brooding on my eggs in hopes that one
    or two will hatch before the morning sun
    arises and the busyness of day
    must interfere and carry me away.

    It’s only in this little niche of time
    between awakening and the day that I’m
    available to summon up my Muse
    and search my subtle consciousness for clues
    as to the course of thought my verse should take,
    discovering what the Mystery can make.

        For who can name the source of all creation?
        What’s best to do is join in the ovation.

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POEMEME

                    No less haunting than a dream,
                    A poem strives to be a meme
                    That will not fade from memory,
                    Preserved by beat and melody.

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OUR DESTINY

       With time, amazingly, this planet Earth
       Gave rise to life and finally the birth
       Of human beings, the noblest of all—
       But for our wayward penchant to appall.

       Perhaps our best excuse is that we’re young,
       An adolescent with a caustic tongue,
       Impulsive, wild, not fully socialized,
       The best of us being still unrealized.

       Less Homo sapiens than Homo sap,
       We need to breach that devastating gap;
       We need at last to doff this fool’s disguise,
       Assuming our true destiny as wise.

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LIMERICK

               Here’s a riddle that’s really quite simple:
               Tell me what’s the reverse of a dimple?
                             If you think inside out
                             You’ll discover no doubt            
               That a dimple inverted’s a pimple.

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THE GREAT TURNING

for David C. Korten

     As ancient Nero fiddled while Rome burned,
     I’ve diddled at my pad and verses turned
     Instead of aiding our emergency:
     The turn from Empire to Community.

     While Wall Street banks and corporations spoil
     Our fragile Earth accruing wealth and oil,
     Heedless of generations yet to come,
     So long as they can multiply the sum,

     It falls to those of us who realize
     We need to chart another way that’s wise,
     A way, for eons on, that can sustain
     Earth’s viability, a way that’s sane.

         The revolution that the wise must raise
         Is one the bounteous Universe will praise.

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RESPICE FINEM

     The end of life?  That’s somewhere up ahead—
     Why think of it until it closes in?
     Life’s for the living; death is for the dead:
     Each day’s a new beginning, so begin.

     That’s cheery, positive and partly true,
     And I accept we need to live life fully,
     Not morbidly fixate then fret and stew,
     Which drains the heart and makes the brain grow 
          wooly.

     Well, let’s agree to seek a compromise:
     Acknowledge death may come at any time
     And therefore study always to be wise:
     Eschew the trivial; find the sublime.

          But life’s a mingled yarn we cannot comb,
          Nor will it be unraveled in this poem.

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