Two poems offered in celebration of National Poetry Month and Earth Day.
May you find splendid ways to honor the creative spirit and our beautiful mother, Gaia. 

Choices

I go to the mountain side

of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow

on the mountain. But when I look up,

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in

the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree,

an unseen nest

where a mountain

would be.            

                         for Drago Štambuk

By Tess Gallagher, from Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems

 

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 Tree

It is foolish

to let a young redwood

grow next to a house.

Even in this

one lifetime,

you will have to choose.

That great calm being,

this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.

Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

By Jane Hirshfield, from Given Sugar, Given Salt.