Gas lit
By Melissa Dennison
Bradford, Yorkshire, England
From boreal forests in the Arctic Circle to Hawaii and Malibu, every year more and more of our planet is burning.
fanning the flames
deniers of
climate change
Lipstick
By Florence Heyhoe
County Down, Northern Ireland
lipstick —
the cosmetic trade
flaying donkeys
Further reading: End the Donkey Skin Trade
The Urge
By Rebecca Drouilhet
Picayune, Mississippi, USA
the urge
to flow beyond my banks . . .
a drop of water
longing to go
where oceans rise and fall
Early Dusk
By John Pappas
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
early dusk
reaching into the warren
winter’s chill
Late October
By: Steve Van Allen
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, Earth
global warming?
a beautiful spring day
late October
The Blue Dot
By Bryan D. Cook
Orleans, Ontario, Canada
Cloaked from earthling sight, two extraterrestrial fortune hunters gaze down at planet Earth.
“Which bit do you want?”
“I’d take the blue stuff but it’s so full of plastics that I’ll pass. How about you?”
“ I’d take the green-brown stuff but it’s overrun with pillaging apes. I’ll pass too.”
“ Let’s go find another trophy world and leave this one’s sun to evaporate away its atmosphere.”
“O.K., pity though, it looked like such a precious blue gem on the trajector screen!”
ocean highway
too fast and busy
for humpbacks
Oriental Plane
By Diana Webb
Leatherhead, Surrey, UK
It towers above the park this tree . An ancient haven with countless generations of birds to its name. It teems with wildlife down through its roots.
Painters have painted it, poets penned poems on it, children danced and sang round the girth of its trunk.
Now there are plans for this space with a landmark. High rise tower blocks. Multi-story car park. Big hotel. Lots and lots and lots of concrete which will always resound with the multi-wave echo of the crash of a tree.
layered picnic rug
with shade of myriad summers
we shake out the tears
Sooty Smokestacks
By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
sooty smokestacks
where dinosaurs
once grazed
Faint Aurora
By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
faint aurora . . .
a polar bear clambers
onto the shrinking floe
Crude
Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
unmixed oil slicks press against dolphin skin
fall leaves…
a plastic bag gapes
wide as Texas
First published in The Other Bunny, June 11, 2018
Broken Bottle
By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
broken bottle
at the end of the path
blue-eyed grass
First published in Plum Tree Tavern, 2015
Crack of Dawn
By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
crack of dawn —
fireflies escape
the jar
First published in Chrysanthemum #18, 2015
Anthropocene
By Steve Van Allen
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, Earth
hawaiian honeycreeper
guam flying fox
bachman’s warbler
yellow blossom pearlymussel
scioto mad tom
mariana fruit bat
Gone forever
plastic
pollution
logging
drilling
hate
asphalt
microplastics
cancer
Cannot leave soon enough
butterfly
the only thing moving
this hot afternoon
The Nature of Falling
By Rebecca Drouilhet
Picayune, MS, USA
Sometimes I still dream of those two old oaks on my grandparent’s old farm. Lightning hit one of them first and then years later, the other. They seemed to be potent symbols of my grandparents, who, ending their last days, were also ending the era of noble peasants tending rural farms. In this era of asphalt and progress, multi-lane highways dominate the landscape. Who remembers a barn full of half-wild kittens or bottle-feeding an orphan calf?
new subdivision…
a bulldozer buries
the last of the violets
vanishing wilderness…
beneath the pale moon
a snowy owl takes wing
forgetting who we are…
the cry of wild things
fading into silence
The Last Fable
By Rebecca Drouilhet
Picayune, MS, USA
At midnight the little mouse lights a flickering candle and dips her heavy quill in ink. Outside her small hovel beneath a pallid moon the ocean is slowly dying. Even here, across a chasm too wide to cross, she can faintly hear the din of eight billion people roaring down ten-lane highways. But no one hears the mouse or heeds her warning. Words appear one by one, stark and black on the ivory parchment, only to fall like tears into an infinity where the ghosts of dead forests and dying shore birds flutter briefly and then plummet into the black hole of silence. The little mouse struggles on, writing against the tide, writing of glaciers and of melting ice, of dying animals, of droughts and heat and coming storms, until at last the candle sputters out.
a new dawn
and the earth goes on
without us…
snagged on a dead branch
a plastic bag snapping
Renascence
By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA
No cougars are supposed to roam the Appalachian mountains. They’re supposed to be extinct here, killed off or driven out by logging half a century ago. And yet . . . here and there a single footprint lingers in damp earth, a wisp of hair clings to rusted wire, a blurred snapshot betrays the image of a ghost-cat slipping through shadows.
And once, echoing down the mountainside where I stumbled mile after mile over rain-slicked rocks in gathering dusk—once, a long, unearthly scream to pierce the heart.
I utter a prayer
into the darkness
that enfolds me—
may all the vanished ones return
when at long last we’re gone
The Spinning Wheel
By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA
milkweed blooms
at the meadow’s edge
she waits
for the monarch’s blessing
under a shattered sky
one strand snaps
and the tapestry ravels—
at dusk
a mockingbird sings
the old crone’s song
soft rain falling
through a starless night
she weaves
its many-colored threads
into a shroud for the earth
~Stacking Stones Anthology, summer 2018
Evensong
By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA
butterflies flutter
from the artist’s brush
in memoriam—
a river of monarchs
once flowed across the sky
slow spirals
up the summer sky—
scavengers
cleansing my mind
of its dark residue
I follow a path
of spindrift oak leaves
to a clearing
where no cabin ever stood—
its hidden hearth my home
the day
closes its circle
around me
silver voices
re-enchant the dusk
to keep at bay
the wolfish dreams,
I sleep
with gentle sorrow
cradled in my arms
~red lights 15:2, June, 2019
Out of Season
By Doug Sylver
Seattle, Washington, USA
Not that it wasn’t appreciated
however unexpected
Not that it wasn’t beautiful
however out of place
Not that it wasn’t surprising
however disturbing
A cherry tree
blossoming full
pink fireworks
but in December
not even winter yet
let alone spring
another palindromic day
another palindromic day
12/11/21
Haiku-worthy
cliché as it is
but Basho is walking
uphill
while me down
and he’s taking notes
on his cell phone
noticing the colors
nodding to them
in their sparseness
noticing my noticing
nodding to me
in my sparseness
and this far north
next door to Canada
a stone’s throw from Alaska
tanka-worthy maybe but
I haven’t counted yet
I haven’t even written yet
You say I am keen today and
since the wind is south by southwest
I know a hawk from a haiku
and a handshake from a handsaw
you should see me on the
other days
and in the
other winds
then you’d agree
perchance that
beauty happens even
when unexpected
then you’d agree
perchance that
when everything
and everyone
should be gone
there’s always hope
for disturbing surprises
even then
even then
and especially when
they’re out of season.
The garden in November
By Doug Sylver
Seattle, Washington, USA
Preparing it for sleep
with maple leaves in various stages of decay
a foot thick between soil so cold
and warming burlap bag blankets
with names of coffee companies
from around the world
Cafe Viejo from El Salvador
Cafe Verde from Ecuador
Cafe Nuyorican from Puerto Rico
It was a tough year to be a tomato
cold wet spring
hot dry summer
records falling everywhere
nature falling everywhere
raspberries tinged with wildfire smoke
gardening gloves tinged with wildfire smoke
my eyes tinged with wildfire smoke
But there were others
successes
potatoes hiding underground
happy to be safe down there
and squash of every shape and color
asking, like beaming children,
are you proud of me?
and the soil, the earth itself
so permanent and
so ever-changing
ignoring us
with all our good intentions
and our constant need to fix
everyone and everything
and like us,
these maple leaves
of every shape and color
in various stages of decay
laughing at us
on our way there
laughing with me
on my way there
underneath a warming blanket
preparing myself
as well
for sleep.