Of Nature and Man

Wrapped in a home with a drippy roof

I sit, desiring to speak--but nothing comes.
I read the flower words of a writer who sees
This world and praises her maker, his mumms
In storms that blow; Yet I, I stand aloof.
The air blows cooly from a machines's gritty guts.
The rain drips from a light, dropping to a bucket.
I sit in my chair, listening to sounds of both--
Which is a sound, a noise, a rubbing of nerves, racket?
It is all one unless that door one shuts.
Man in nature and nature in Man--and yet--
What we make and all we make is also a part
Of nature or else we are not.   So which
Would you have us be: Of nature, soul and heart,
Or separate--all the beauties to forget?

Steve R. Morris
Growth of man, Death of Earth
Nest are built in the tallest tree,
clad in an ivy rich green sea,
winds do whisper stories and fables,
they are caught by the branches of lime and maple,
gnarled and wind swept, exposed to all weather,
used as a home and a post to tether,
to dig the soil and plant a seed,
is a wonderful magical worthwhile need,
from the ground grows a stalk,
to make the neighbours jealous and baulk,
all it takes is an idea, a future plan,
for without trees and water there would not be man,

pleasure and knowledge are gained from the land,

whether in field, mountain, or wood where you stand,
a concept of the future and the children yet be born,
what do we pass on, what do we offer, nothing and loss and a fistful
of scorn,
our kids are the future, they have to survive,
without food they cannot eat or oil not drive,
solution pollution, where have you been,
open your eyes to truly see.
Angry, bitter and annoyed with my peers, Trevor Seery
I choose to change and influence their fears.
The Egg and the Machine

He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. He found suspicious sand, and sure enough,
From far away there came an answering tick The pocket of a little turtle mine.
And then another tick. He knew the code: If there was one egg in it there were nine,
His hate had roused an engine up the road. Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather
He wished when he had had the track alone All packed in sand to wait the trump together.
He had attacked it with a club or stone ‘You’d better not disturb any more,’
And bent some rail wide open like switch He told the distance, ‘I am armed for war.
So as to wreck the engine in the ditch. The next machine that has the power to pass
Too late though, now, he had himself to thank. Will get this plasm in it goggle glass.’
Its click was rising to a nearer clank.
Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.
(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)
Then for a moment all there was was size
Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries
He raised against the gods in the machine.
Then once again the sandbank lay serene.
The traveler’s eye picked up a turtle train,
between the dotted feet a streak of tail,
And followed it to where he made out vague
But certain signs of buried turtle’s egg;
And probing with one finger not too rough,
Robert Frost
Eating And Drinking
Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, “Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.”
And he said:
Would that you could live on the fragerance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then
be an act of worship,
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed
for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.
When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
“By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that deliv-
ered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
“Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”
And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart,
“I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,
And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.”
And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;
And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the
winepress.

Kahil Gibran
We build, we build

We build, we build, We build high,

Form over structure. We build to the sky.
We build, we build, We build high,
Energyh over matter. We watch it die.

We build in vain, We build far and nigh,

We build in pain. We build lie upon lie,
We tear it down, Not knowing, that one day,
We build again. It will all be washed away.

Symbols of progress
Architect’s success
Man-made fortress
A material excess.

We build over forest and plain

Mother Nature’s rape,
We build, guilty as Cain
Mass conscience escape.

Avinash Ramchander
A portion of the poem Seasons: Spring

In all the colours of the flushing year

By Nature’s swift and secret-workng hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promis’d fruit
Lies yet a little embryo, unperciev’d,
Within its crimson folds. Now from the town
Burried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o’er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent bush, as though the verdant maze
Of sweetbriar hedges I pursue my walk;
Or taste the smell of dairy, or ascend
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plain,
And see the country, far diffused around,
One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms; where the raptured eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies...

James Thomson
Quotes
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water work-
ing at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
Henry David Thoreau
I will be steel!
I will build a steel bridge over my need!
I will build a bomb shelter over my heart!
But my future is a secret.
It is as shy as a mole.
Anne Sexton
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. 
Albert Einstein
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been
given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry
up, wild life’s become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
Uncle Vanya

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and
life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and
streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.
John Muir