This is intended to be a somewhat continuing series in honor of National Poetry Month. I intend to post this series two or three times a week throughout the month of April with various themes.

The theme for this offering is, "Earth Day."

In this and each of the offerings, I will present some poetry of note and a few of my own. I would hope that in the comments, a poem that follows the theme, original or one dear to the heart, might be shared.

With that, let's continue the series with...

Earth Day

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird's wings too high in air to view,--
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair,--and the long year remembers you.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Sonnet 03: Mindful Of You The Sodden Earth In Spring

Beyond the great valley an odd instinctive rising
Begins to possess the ground, the flatness gathers
to little humps and
barrows, low aimless ridges,
A sudden violence of rock crowns them. The crowded
orchards end, they
have come to a stone knife;
The farms are finished; the sudden foot of the
slerra. Hill over hill,
snow-ridge beyond mountain gather
The blue air of their height about them.

Here at the foot of the pass
The fierce clans of the mountain you'd think for
thousands of years,
Men with harsh mouths and eyes like the eagles' hunger,
Have gathered among these rocks at the dead hour
Of the morning star and the stars waning
To raid the plain and at moonrise returning driven
Their scared booty to the highlands, the tossing horns
And glazed eyes in the light of torches. The men have
looked back
Standing above these rock-heads to bark laughter
At the burning granaries and the farms and the town
That sow the dark flat land with terrible rubies...
lighting the dead...
It is not true: from this land
The curse was lifted; the highlands have kept peace
with the valleys; no
blood in the sod; there is no old sword
Keeping grim rust, no primal sorrow. The people are
all one people, their
homes never knew harrying;
The tribes before them were acorn-eaters, harmless
as deer. Oh, fortunate
earth; you must find someone
To make you bitter music; how else will you take bonds
of the future,
against the wolf in men's hearts?

-- Robinson Jeffers
Ascent To The Sierras

Life On Earth is pulled down hard on a man's head. This life was made
by hatters. A busy street is only coffee, bread, and hats. The smell
of a man's hat - an old man's hat - is like the nostril of a horse.
You are breathing in what something beautiful and ancient has breathed
out. The heat and life contained in it, the silk interior. An old man's
hat is necessary: You see that when he takes it off, his hair and skin
abruptly float away.

-- David Keplinger
Life On Earth

Earth

by

Justice Putnam

She once was
A virgin earth

A soft quiet girl

Pure
Without disgrace

But she was more than taught
She was made to learn
Forced more than once

More than a thousand times
She returned

Until we took a stand
And we raped her
Over and over
Again

The earth
Became a working whore

She was made
Into that way
By man.

No longer
Are her waters

Pure

They've foamed
In soot and oil
Much too long

Her blue eyes
Now are gray

Her forests
Are covered
With blood and flesh

Stained
More and more
Each day.

The earth
Once was
A gentle virgin

A leader of
Soft lights
And pearl days

She once was
A leader of
Crystal memories

That now float away

In some kind of
Blue haze.

I often ask her
Where she's been going

She more than often sighs
That she's been going down

Though that she really wouldn't mind
To walk the streets uptown

She's stuck here
Working for man
On a corner

Of this
Skid Row town.

(Los Angeles, California 1971)

The Nature of Poetics Collapsed Outside My Window

by

Justice Putnam

On the third floor
Of an old stone hotel
I gaze out my window
To the night rain
Wet streets of
Mexico City.

I look down on rooftops
Built by Spaniards
And across stratum
Of TV antennae
Electric lights
And the huge domes of
Ancient cathedrals.

History is backed up
Against itself here
Like layers of
Soil and mud

One can see the edge of
Aztec excavations
Between the sleek
Exact lines
Of modern towers.

Echoing up from the street
Is the wet hiss
Of rolling tires
On wet black-top

And the more distant
Sounds of
Engines
Dogs
And voices

All fusing somehow
Into that single
Universal
Hum-drone

The chant of cities.

The Poet must be
Alone here

He must be free
And live as
The wind itself

Not bound by
The culture of society
Not restrained by taboo.

At ease to wander
In the mysterious visions
Of touching everything
Of trusting everything
Of believing everything.

The Poet must be free
To live the law
Of iguana-lazy sleep
On the hot sand

The Poet must be free
For the frenzy
Of butterfly wings

Across the cool smooth
Strange sculptured
Texture of tropical waters.

The Poet must be free
To move
To see

Free to
Merely be.

(Mexico City, Mexico 1986)

It is not right
To elevate Her
To the status of
Goddess

Rational man
Would refute it.

A material world
Critical of
Class and place

Would find
That elevation
To be demeaning.

My Heart
Doesn't beat
In a material world

Though
I be nothing
More than
Flesh and
Bone.

In a sky
Of light

A universe
Of gravity

A galaxy
Among the void
And plasma

And yet some
Would question
Whether another
Would doubt

The Power of
God's hand?

(San Francisco, California 2008)

The Myth of Chimeral Evolution

by

Justice Putnam

Darwin
Berkeley and
Nietzsche

Were traversing
Through the
Primordial soup
When a
Booming Voice
Echoed throughout the
World,

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

The Booming Voice
Joyously announced,
For He was a
Joyous and happy
Booming Voice,

"So you
have quite a conundrum
Before you now!"

Berkeley,
As was his manner,
Nudged ahead of
Nietzsche and
Announced,

"I know or am
Conscious of my own
Being;
And that I
Myself
Am not my ideas,
But somewhat else,
A thinking,
Active principle
That perceives,
Knows,
Wills and
Operates about
Ideas.

I know that I,
One and the same
Self,
Perceive both
Colors and
Sounds:
That a color
Cannot perceive a
Sound,
Nor a sound a
Color:
That I am
Therefore one
Individual principle,
Distinct from
Color and
Sound;
And for the
Same reason,
From all other
Sensible things and
Inert ideas.

But I am not
In like manner
Conscious either
Of the
Existence or
Essence of
Matter.

On the contrary,
I know that
Nothing inconsistent
Can exist,
And that the
Existence of
Matter implies an
Inconsistency.

Further,
I know
What I mean
When I affirm
That there is a
Spiritual substance
Or support of ideas,
That is,
That a
Spirit knows and
Perceives
Ideas.

But I do not know
What is meant
When it is said
That an unperceiving
Substance has
Inherent in it
And supports either
Ideas or the
Archetypes of
Ideas.

There is
Therefore
Upon the whole
No parity
Of case between
Spirit and
Matter."

Not to be outdone,
Nietzsche elbowed
His way past
Darwin and Berkeley to
His preordained spot,

"With the highest respect,
I accept
The name of
Heraclitus.

When the rest
Of the
Philosophic folk
Rejected the testimony
Of the senses
Because they showed
Multiplicity and
Change.

He rejected their
Testimony
Because they
Showed things
As if they had
Permanence and
Unity.

Heraclitus too
Did the
Senses an
Injustice.

They lie neither
In the way
The Eleatics believed,
Nor as he believed,
They do not
Lie at all.

What we make
Of their
Testimony,
That alone
Introduces lies;
For example,
The lie
Of
Unity,
The lie
Of
Thinghood,
Of
Substance,
Of
Permanence.

Reason is the cause
Of our
Falsification of the
Testimony of the
Senses.

In so far as the
Senses show
Becoming,
Passing away and
Change,
They do not
Lie.

But Heraclitus
Will remain
Eternally right
With his assertion that
Being is an empty
Fiction.

The apparent world
Is the only one:
The true world is
Merely added
By a
Lie."

Darwin strode
Forward in a
Gentlemanly manner,
Cleared his throat and
Began,

"As man can produce
And certainly has
Produced a great
Result by his
Methodical and
Unconscious means of
Selection,
What may not
Nature effect?

Man can act
Only on
External and
Visible characters:
Nature cares
nothing for appearances,
Except in so far
As they may be
Useful to any
Being.

She can act
On every
Internal organ,
On every
Shade of
Constitutional difference,
On the whole
Machinery of
Life.

Man selects
Only for his
Own good;
Nature only for
That of the
Being which
She tends.

Every selected character
Is fully
Exercised by
Her;
And the being is
Placed under well-suited
Conditions of
Life.

Man keeps the
Natives of many
Climates in the
Same country;
He seldom
Exercises each
Selected character
In some
Peculiar and
Fitting manner;
He feeds a
Long and a
Short beaked pigeon
On the
Same food;
He does not
Exercise a
Long-backed or
Long-legged quadruped
In any
Peculiar manner;
He exposes sheep
With long and short wool
To the same
Climate.

He does not
Allow the most
Vigorous males to
Struggle for the females.

He does not
Rigidly destroy all
Inferior animals,
But protects during
Each varying season,
As far as lies
In his power,
All his
Productions.

He often begins
His selection by some
Half-monstrous form;
Or at least by some
Modification
Prominent enough
To catch
His eye,
Or to be
Plainly
Useful to him.

Under nature,
The slightest
Difference of
Structure or
Constitution
May well
Turn the
Nicely-balanced
Scale in the
Struggle for
Life,
And so be
Preserved.

How fleeting are
The wishes
And efforts
Of man!

How short his
Time!

And consequently
How poor
Will his
Products be,
Compared with those
Accumulated by
Nature during whole
Geological periods.

Can we wonder then,
That
Nature's productions
Should be far
Truer in character
Than man's productions;
That they should
Be infinitely
Better adapted
To the most
Complex conditions of
Life,
And should
Plainly bear
The stamp of far
Higher workmanship?"

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

The Booming Voice
Joyously continued,

"If it were not
For your
Minds,
I would almost
Doubt my own
Existence!"

(Sausalito, California 2006)**

** sources:
"Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous" --George Berkeley
"Twilight of the Idols"--Friedrich Nietzsche
"The Origin of Species"--Charles Darwin

© 2009 Justice Putnam
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