EARTH DAY PANTOUM

Painting by S. Auberle

EARTH DAY PANTOUM

Like songs, like prayers,
they want to be heard--
these wild places
I carry in my heart.

They want to be heard
like you and me, and
I carry them, softly,
give them voice.

Like you and me
they weep sometimes
and I share with them my tears.
I have listened to rivers,

weeping for their diminishment,
to mountains, shattered for coal.
I have listened to laments of the raped
forests and grieved beside them.

The shattered mountains
do not beg for mercy,
the forests ask only that I listen,
mourn who they once were.

Like songs, like prayers,
like the hawk's high screams,
the wild places are going.  Pity
the children who will never know.

~  Sharon Auberle