I offer a bouquet to the earth—for Earth Day 2020.
for the Earth
i offer you a bouquet,
my earth
(who also belongs to you. him. her.
them.
us.). oh— also to cardinals. robins.
mud skippers. sidewinding crabs. whales of our deepest darkest
thoughts. each and every cow
in a herd.
white pines. swamp grass.
weeds. burgeoning diamonds and storied
sandstone.
but i must stop here
for if i list everything
and everyone to whom you belong i
could never stop.
so i offer you,
our earth,
a bouquet on behalf
of us all.
(whoops. forgot the moon. you belong
to the moon, whose gravity
slowed your youthful speed of rotation
so life could form.)
(come to think of it you also belong
to the sun.
one million of you—
of us—
could safely seek shelter in the sun—
if it weren’t so blazingly hot).
without you,
oh madly rotating blue gem of spacetime,
the sun would lose
its heart.
but i digress.
I offer you,
our earth,
a bouquet—
i hope you will like it.
do you?
i chose specifically
hybrid blue blooms
crafted of water—
the atlantic, pacific, arctic, indian, (all the oceans wanted in)
(don’t worry, i recruited schools of silverfish, minnow,
independent contractors of octopi and squid,
and herds of wild sea horses
to filter the plastic out).
baby’s breath of well,
babies, in a mélange of perfumes from every continent,
roses of rubies,
chrysanthemums of crystals,
and orchids of purple opals.
there are also—
petals of avian wings:
dramatic red cardinal quills,
brightly patterned indigo wonders of those proud peacocks,
silvery black albatross feathers.
there are many more feathers—all the birds wanted in—
isn’t it astonishing, how light the bouquet still is,
weighed up only with the source of flight?
woops. here’s a tiny green feather
of a bee hummingbird,
the smallest bird in the world
to navigate your azure skies.
it fell out.
here.
i’ll put it back in.
and look—
here are apple, dragon-fruit, and tangelo blossoms.
vegetable greens. herbs
who threw themselves into the bouquet for you.
do you know what those are on top?—
the frothy white floral whorls?
yes! you’re right.
clouds. they formed themselves into flowers of water vapor
for you.
and look here—the raindrops have drenched themselves
in sunlight,
making jewels of rainbows for you.
now. look closer. or, listen closer--
i installed an audio chip:
elephants trumpet for you.
chimpanzees screech,
cheering for you.
that glunking groaking sound?
a chorus of frogs—
and toads.
now. listen to this. can you guess
what this sound is?
you can’t?
have you really forgotten?
are you losing your memory
as you age?
i know it’s been several hundred million years
but…
yes! that’s right! dinosaur roars. they were on this earth millions of years longer
than we (humans) have been;
I couldn’t forget them.
oh—one last thing—
the unicellular organisms
who photosynthesized enough oxygen into the earth
over two billion years
so that we (humans) and dinosaurs and sloths
could breathe—
they are in here as well. you just can’t see them.
well I hope you like our offering--
it’s tied up with ribbons of time--
do you know the best part about it?
we couldn’t have created it
without you.