Since it is Tuesday, the poetry prompt is a two-part poem:  Write a poem about violence and/or peace.
Here is my #readapoem aloud poem for today.

 

In the spring, there are skunk cabbages,
purple pods rising from the marshes,
spathe and spadix (look them up)
scenting the air, first in the race
to lure the waking pollinators.

Snowdrops and aconite bring the wood alive,
their blossoms whispering amid breezes,
the buzz of the first honeybees,
the Louisiana waterthrush singing
about the creek that mutters over stones.

And at night, while the owls utter longing
to the moon, and a drizzle coats the moonlit branches,
the mud salamanders wriggle from their winter burrows
and slither down to the vernal pools to lay their precious eggs.

What will they do when the bulldozers come?
When the trucks arrive with their gravel and pipes?
Where will the birds find quiet branches for nesting,
the spotted salamanders find soft muddy springs for their young?

Someone has studied it, surely,
made a proposal based on plan
which is based on a study
which dismisses in fine language
the impact of pipelines on wildlife
in tender wild places.

The chances of leaks in the pipe
are slim to nothing, so they say.
Tell that to the ducks of Mayflower,
to the marshes of Ripley, Missouri.
Tell it to the wheat farmers of Tioga,
to the wildflowers of the Oak Glen Nature Preserve.

Tell it to the tender dogtooth violets
before you tear them from the soil,
to the otters who dance on the creek banks.
Tell it to the shy hermit thrush
before you slash through the wood
with your heavy machinery.

We cannot unring this bell.
We cannot unkill the wild.
We cannot unbreak our hearts.

 

Gratitude List:
1.   Louisiana Waterthrush
2.  Toads sing!  I did not know this when I named my book.  Turn on your sound and click here.
3.  A sense of purpose in uncertain times
4.  Fresh energy
5.  Chaperoning a field trip

May we walk in Beauty!