The power of poetry to move us to action

To scoop a sea up in your hand - Won’t make it drier. For our souls, there’s only one Heavenly fire. One only breath, from lips to lips, For all the people One only fate, one only mile For all creation One myrrh anoints us, everyone One single motion And our days will flow away A single river In every grain, both flour and bread Contain their essence And opens wide a path for us From earth to heaven. Как море зачерпнуть в ладонь – Не станет суше. Один божественный огонь На наши души. Одно на всех, из уст в уста Одно дыханье Одна судьба, одна верста На мирозданье Мы мирром мазаны одним Одной рукою И утекают наши дни Одной рекою В любом зерне таится суть Муки и хлеба Тебе и мне торится путь С земли до неба

Dear Natalya and Jonathan, thank you both for your different but equally moving poetry. What an honour it is to share this material on this blog.

When the time’s toxins have seeped into every cell and like a salted plot from which all rain, all green, are gone I and life are leached of meaning somehow a seed of belief sprouts the instant I acknowledge it: little weedy hardy would-be greenness tugged upward by light while deep within roots like talons are taking hold again of this our only earth. - CHRISTIAN WIMAN http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/poem/5942/

A FATAL MISTAKE by Edna Eglinton The turtle was killed by a careless hand three thousand miles away, a hand that had crumpled a plastic bag tossed it aside and left it to lie in the grass on a cliff by the sea. It blew on the wind out over the bay and fell in the tidal stream where the strength of the current carried it on rolling and rocking through froth and foam to the warmth of a faraway sea. Sunshine expanded the air in the bag till it floated on top of the swell, like one of the crowd of jellyfish there sparkling with colours of sunshine and air afloat on the rollicking sea. A hungry turtle swimming by snapped it up in his jellyfish meal. It stuck in his throat and choked him — dead in the middle of that sea. Three thousand miles from that careless hand a female turtle waits. She has no fertile eggs this year, no small new turtles will appear in the sand by that lonely sea.

I love this poem by Matt Harvey - a serious message told with a light touch. Less is More Can less be more, can more be less? Well, yes and no, and no and yes Well, more or less… More bikes, fewer cars Less haze, more stars Less haste, more time Less reason, more rhyme More time, less stress Fewer miles, more fresh (vegetables) Fewer car parks, more acres of available urban soil More farmers’ markets, less produce effectively marinated in crude oil Less colouring, more taste More mashing, less waste Fewer couch potatoes, more spring greens Fewer tired tomatoes, more runner beans More stillness, less inertia Less illness, more Echinacea More community, less isolation Less just sitting there, more participation! More wells (not oil ones, obviously), fewer ills Fewer clean fingernails, more skills More co-operation, less compliancy Less complacency, more self-reliancy Less competition, more collaboration Less passive listening, more participation! Less attention defic…, more concentration Less passive listening, more participation! (Less repetition) Less of a warm globe, more a chilly’un More of a wise world, at least 34 fewer parts of C02 per million Less stress-related cardio-vascular and pulmonary failure More nurturing quality time in the company of a favourite clematis or dahlia More craftsmanship, less built-in obsolescence More political maturity, less apparently-consequence-free extended adolescence More believed-to-be-beautiful, known-to-be-useful things Less cheap, pointless, petroleum-steeped stuff So Yes, less is more – and enough’s enough…