Nolo Segundo: Delusions of Progress
It struck me some years ago when I saw cave paintings in France from 40,000 years ago that people then were just as intelligent as we are.
Tara Lohan: Why America Is Removing Thousands of Dams and Letting Rivers Run Free
After centuries of dam building, a nationwide movement to dismantle these aging barriers is showing how free-flowing rivers can restore ecosystems, improve safety, and reconnect people with nature.
Diane Wakoski: Braised Leeks & Framboise
The Saturnian taste
of old raspberries, and the moon’s
clear-fingered insistence
of leek. These two intangible things
I owe you
Jonathan Anomaly: What’s Wrong With Factory Farming?
The costs of factory farming as it is currently practiced far outweigh the benefits. Here are a few suggestions for how to improve the situation for animals and people.
Naomi Shihab Nye: Every day as a wide field, every page
And there were so many more poems to read!
Countless friends to listen to.
We didn’t have to be in the same room—
the great modern magic.
Jane Kenyon: The Beaver Pool in December
The beavers thrive somewhere
else, eating the bark of hoarded
saplings. How they struggled
to pull the long branches
over the stiffening bank…
George Witte: Laurels
Garland me with pestilence,
blown in, unbidden, rooted out or burnt
with toxin, only to revive.
Michael Simms: The Crows
We barely recognized ourselves
But the crows knew
Who we were and where we’d been
Why we returned
The True Story of Thanksgiving
The Thanksgiving story you know probably goes like this: English Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they found a rich land full of animals and were greeted … Continue reading
Michael Daley: Desire
I saw the planets align tonight, then fog in sheets,
cloud in waves, whipped across Mt. Erie
and unburdened the night of its new worlds.
Derrick Z. Jackson: The Fight for Clean Water — Majesty or Madness
I came upon six great blue herons grabbing herring out of the water as gulls swooped down for the leftovers. The Charles is now its own wildlife refuge.
Robinson Jeffers: Hurt Hawk
I’d sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bones too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
Esther Duflo: Tax the rich — and save the planet
Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo calculates the staggering cost of wealthy nations pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, proving that getting billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes is the best way to cover these damages.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: The Garden
Because everything I learned from the stained
glass windows I was told to kneel under
still remains thorned & stained & torn,
& all the teachings I was told to believe, still
leave me dis-believing & I wish it were not so —
