SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO LOVE THE WORLD

by Donna Hilbert

Sometimes it’s hard to love the world 

but not the earth

not hard to love the earth

suffering through no fault

of its own

 

Sometimes it’s hard to love the world 

of humans 

who wrack the earth

as if it were their own

 

It’s not hard to love the children

of the world, but it’s hard to save them

who suffer from the failures

whose making’s not their own

 

It’s hard to love the world that doesn’t love 

its children enough to save them 

even when their heads are bowed and praying 

in their church, their school, their home.

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Enormous Blue Umbrella from Moon Tide Press, following Threnody, Moon Tide, 2022. A second edition of Gravity: New & Selected Poems is available from Moon Tide. Work has appeared in numerous journals and broadcasts including Cultural Daily, Gyroscope, Rattle, Sheila Na Gig, ONE ART, Vox Populi, The Writer’s Almanac, Lyric Life, and anthologies including The Poetry of Presence volumes I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, Boomer Girls, The Widows’ Handbook, I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing. She writes and leads workshops in Long Beach, California.

DECLAIM

by Mark Svendsen

for the children

PBS, March 8, 2024

Standing at the crossroads, black with traffic

Waiting for the little green man to tell me I could go

When a child, quick as a nightmare, broke from its mother’s hand

Ran beside me, looking back at her, shrieking, into the road.

Without thought I dived, catching at the child

Bringing it to me and to its mother,

Just as you in my place would have done.

Sometimes, my people, your child becomes my child

Your love becomes my love

Your blood is mine.

But now! What are we thinking now, my people?

For years the children have played, been pushed

Into the middle of the road

And we have turned our face away.

But now, when we are forced to see them

When we are forced to see

We turn our face again?

What are we thinking my people?

Let tears wound our cheeks

For what we’ve done.

Let fear wound our minds

That we think so.

Tell me you love them my people, or I am lost.

Show me you love them my people, 

Or all we are together is gone.

Mark Svendsen prefers concrete to other more porous materials with which to pave his mind but, even then, cracks eventually appear and poems, like weeds of the mind, take root and must be dealt with summarily. He lives in Zilzie, Australia with his partner. There, she writes music, and he writes things – in an attempt to maintain homeostasis.

WHALE SONG

by Barbara Parchim

Probing the structure of the ocean crust requires a wave source. The most common source is an air gun, which is effective but potentially harmful for ocean life and not easy to use everywhere. Václav M. Kuna and John L. Nábělek found that fin whale songs can also be used as a seismic source for determining crustal structure. Fin whale vocalizations can be as loud as large ships and occur at frequencies useful for traveling through the ocean floor. These properties allow fin whale songs to be used for mapping out the density of ocean crust, a vital part of exploring the seafloor. —Science, February 12, 2021

now that seismologists know

that different frequencies of whale songs

can map the layers of the ocean floor

to help us study sediment and rock

in areas where earthquakes occur—

can we pause?

 

when their beauty and sentience,

curiosity and gentleness,

is not enough—

has never been enough—

to awaken compassion

 

when the “harvest” of these giants,

some with their young alongside

does not engender adequate empathy

 

now that we have a “use”

for these beings,

for scientific research,

that requires a living, breathing, body

 

now—

can we, finally, stop the slaughter?

 

 

Barbara Parchim lives on a small farm in southwest Oregon. She enjoys gardening and hiking and volunteered for several years at a wildlife rehabilitation facility. Her poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, Isacoustic, Turtle Island Quarterly, Windfall, and Trouvaille Review. Her first chapbook, selected by Flowstone Press, will appear in 2021.

I CANNOT SAVE

by Howard Winn

“January 2015- BC’s War on Wolves continues: As you read this, wolves in British Columbia, Canada are being shot at by hunters in helicopters. This is an ill-conceived plan to save endangered caribou in B.C.. The wolves are not responsible for the dwindling caribou numbers; habitat loss and human encroachment are. But wolves are taking the blame and paying the price. B.C. Wolves Need Your Help: Consider donating to our Indiegogo Campaign. Sign the Save B.C. Wolves petition.” --PACIFICWILD.org

I cannot save
them all
the wolves and walruses
the manatee and elephants
the white rhino and
the mountain gorilla
not to mention the cod
and the tarpon
of course we have
already lost the
passenger pigeon
so nothing to do there
but perhaps we
can save the redwoods
although they are
unlikely to personally care
as with the need to save
the Colorado River
and the Amazon rain
forest which is being
clear cut for agriculture
so we have to save
the indigenous people
who live in the woods
and the song birds that
are the tiny relics
of the extinct dinosaurs
so much to save and
I cannot finish the list
if only I were a heartless
sociopath without empathy
or a care in the universe
beyond my selfish self
like the Ayn Rand disciples
one could be oblivious
and blissful in the face
of obvious total extermination
as the earth we know
turns into Mars, Pluto, or Ceres.


Howard Winn’s poetry and fiction has appeared in a number of literary journals such as The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Dalhousie Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Journal, Blueline, and Sediments Literary Arts Journal. He is a State of New York University Professor of English.

UNETHICAL TRADE

by David Feela





If only the African moon
was made of ivory,

and as it weighed
so heavily on the horizon

poachers could cut it
into pieces and get away

by daybreak with a truckload
of the polished night.

I would give up the moon --
all of it -- let the earth

invent its own luminosity
if only to keep the elephants.

David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.