The Poetic Planet

I remember my father
trudging through a muddy field,
with a couple of buckets,
uttering his loud lowing sound
as he self-communed over a problem.
 
Earth’s voice is deep.
NASA voyagers in space
have heard her urgent music,
recorded it for us – wordless,
somewhat whalelike.
 
Homing in we see blue oceans,
shapes of continents appear,
soon forests, large green patches,
and brilliant blobs are cities.
Then what can be heard is conversation.
 
People are chatting, laughing,
crying, calling, pleading,
expressing how it feels to be an earthling,
speaking for themselves
and for hills and flowers and animals,
 
one species among many that belong,
evolution’s product, mortal like the rest,
fallible, linguistic, making the planet
articulate her story, form the poem
wording Earth’s deep hum.
 

Dinah Livingstone

published in Acumen 85, May 2016;
in collection Embodiment, 2019, Katabasis,
ISBN 978-0-904872-49-1