The Environmental Outdoor Exhibit Project (EOEP)

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, NC, USA forestsburning far awayI bowto the wood thrushsinging orisons unseen I follow a path along the brook, through mountain laurel and rhododendron. The stone hut stands half-hidden among the trees, its roof green with moss. Thick, curved walls enclose an oval of coolness in the summer heat. Elliptical windows admit a little light.  As my eyes adjust, I notice a message chalked on the sloping ceiling: maybe the world isn’t dying . . . maybe she’s heavy with child *Note: The second tanka is a ‘found poem.’~From my book Earthbound: Tanka-Prose & Haibun, 2022

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, NC, USA I used to thinkit would last forever—the swallowscoming home each year,the green hills blossoming on my pathone pure white featherI carry with menews of a dying planet,a widening war the bridgeacross the creek—I cannot seethe barred owl calling from the other side a water striderdimples the surface,an otter rises and vanishes . . .the stream flows on spring beauties bloomamong tiny handprintsin the mudI kneel on the bankof the passing moment ~First published as the Afterword to A Worn Chest by Joy McCall & Tom Clausen, 2022   Reprinted in my book The Wind Harp: Tanka Pentads, 2023

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, NC, USA Hokusai painted them, Issa wrote about them, and Mao did his best to exterminate them.  It’s true that Eurasian tree sparrows gorge themselves on spilled grain.  So, during the Great Leap Forward, the Four Pests Campaign encouraged schoolchildren to kill as many sparrows as they could, tearing up nests and smashing eggs. People beat pots and gongs to drive them from their roosts until the birds dropped from exhaustion.  A billion sparrows died. With few birds left to eat them, hungry locusts swarmed through grain fields and rice paddies. Upwards of forty million people…

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USAA glimpse of white wing bars, half hidden among juniper and honeysuckle. Uncertain, I find a picture on my phone and the app plays several notes of a song. At once a tiny being—no more than a quarter of an ounce—confronts me, scolding loudly, warning me away from a world that belongs to him.  sunlit hedgerow—the kinglet revealshis ruby crown

By Jenny Ward AngyalGibsonville, North Carolina, USA all of usfrom blowfly to blue whalebirthright citizensof a dying planet . . .who will have the last word?