EXIT, PURSUED BY A SIERRA MEADOW

That slow, rhythmic flickering of wings,
As if from the ache of pleasure –
A California tortoiseshell
Hovering over a few white milkweeds.

Smell of water in the dry air,
The almost nutmeg smell of dust.

Good-bye, white fir, Jeffrey pine.
I have no way of knowing whether you prefer
Summer or winter,
Though I think you are more beautiful in winter.

Scarlet fritillary, corn lily,
I don’t know which you prefer, either.
So long, horse mint,
Your piebald mix of lavender and soft gray-green under the cottonwoods
On a shelf of lichened granite near a creek
May be the most startling thing in these mountains,
Besides the mountains.
It’s good that we stopped just a minute
To look at you and then walked down the trail
Because we had things to do
And because beauty is a little unendurable,
I mean, getting used to it is unendurable,
Because if we can’t eat a thing or do something with it,
Human beings get bored by almost everything eventually,
Which is why winter is such an admirable invention.
There’s another month of summer here.
August will squeeze the sweetness out of you
And drift it as pollen.
Robert Hass, former US poet laureate, Time and Materials

350
is the most important number in the world right now.
Climate scientist, James Hanson,says we should not exceed 350 parts per million in the atmosphere in order to sustain life on earth as we know it. Already at 390, we must insist that our leaders take decisive action at the international climate conference in Copenhagen this December to reverse the trend.
Please go to www.350.org for more information
and ways to become involved.

STATE OF THE PLANET (Part one of ten)

October on the planet at the century’s end.
Rain lashing the windshield. Through blurred glass
Gusts of a Pacific storm rocking a huge, shank-needled
Himalayan cedar. Under it a Japanese plum
Throws off a vertical cascade of leaves the color
Of skinned copper, if copper could be skinned.
And under it, her gait as elegant and supple
As the young of any of earth’s species, a schoolgirl
Negotiates a crosswalk in the wind, her hair flying.
The red satchel on her quite straight back darkening
Splotch by smoky crimson splotch as the rain pelts it.
One of the six billion of her hungry and curious kind.
Inside the backpack, dog-eared, full of illustrations,
A book with a title like Getting to Know Your Planet.

The book will tell her that the earth this month
Has yawed a little distance from the sun,
And that the air, cooling, has begun to move,
As sensitive to temperature as skin is
To a lover’s touch. It will also tell her that the air –
It’s likely to say “the troposphere” has trapped
Emissions from millions of cars, idling like mine
As she crosses, and is making a greenhouse
Of the atmosphere. The book will say that climate
Is complicated, that we may be doing this,
And if we are, it may explain that this
Was something we’ve done quite accidentally,
Which she can understand, not having meant
That morning to have spilled the milk. She’s
One of those who’s only hungry metaphorically.

Robert Hass, former US poet laureate, Time and Materials

is the most important number in the world right now.
Climate scientist, James Hanson,says we should not exceed 350 parts per million in the atmosphere in order to sustain life on earth as we know it. Already at 390, we must insist that our leaders take decisive action at the international climate conference in Copenhagen this December to reverse the trend.
Please go to www.350.org for more information
and ways to become involved.

Here is an action designed to engage poets’ skills in the climate cause and make use of poetry’s ability to touch hearts and transport people to beloved places. Let’s meet at the parking lot on the north/east side of the Golden Gate Bridge at 1 pm on October 24. Then we will walk onto the bridge and hand out the leaflets complete with poems and vital 350.org information.
For directions, go to http://www.goldengatebridge.org/visitors/directions.php. Unfortunately, it is necessary to cross the bridge, pay the toll, and double back, if you are coming from the north. But parking is free! From the south, you could park in the SE lot and walk across. But parking there is metered.

I have posted two sample poetry leaflets on 350.org with poems by Robert Hass, former U.S. poet laureate, who has graciously given his permission for us to use them, and a tag that explains the action and the significance of the number 350.
Please feel free to modify this leaflet by adding your own environmental poem. (If you use other people’s work, you should get their permission.) Then print a bunch up and head for the bridge! I plan on being there from 1 pm to 3 pm that day.