Poetry Toward
Eco-Consciousness

 

If we surrendered
to Earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Ranier Maria Rilke

How to Read Poems for This Course

Many people become confused by poems because they are art and use words.

In school and at work, we learn to read as fast as we can comprehend. This is a tough habit to break, but to read poems it must be broken.

Reading a poem fast is like speeding up music. It loses a lot.

Poems are an art form directed not just at the thinking mind, but at the whole body, the whole person. Half a poem's effect on us is based in the sounds and rhythms.

Please read these poems at mouuth speed, and read them aloud.

Poems are experiences for the whole self, just as watching an eagle fly overhead, or putting your whole hand into warm mud.

As the Tao says, to fill you must first be empty.
So open yourself to these poems as you might open to an embrace.

 

Animal Poems Sampler

Poems from the Deep Connections

Mary Oliver, A Sampler

Nature Poems, A Sampler

Kids Poems from Nature, A Sampler

Stanlry Kunitz, The Round

Robinson Jeffers, The Answer

John Caddy, Haibun for Earth, Fall