Our precious planet earth,
the only habitable cosmic sphere
science scanners see today --
is it “too much with us,”
as Wordsworth once wondered?
Nature, now again newsworthy:
splash-spotted video lenses drip images
of ocean-soaked fear, horror, chaos --
angry tsunami’s Satanic forces
washing wickedly, Katrina-like,
over boats, beaches, bodies,
over grand and inglorious houses --
dream homes left in piles of detritus.
We can almost smell the fetid jetsam
left lying sadly on mud and sand.
Nature itself cannot be the culprit
(said I, coming to its defense!)
By its nature, nature is beautiful,
lovely, poetic, picturesque.
Surely such evil is an aberration,
not retribution for environmental sins.
Take snow. Pristine, pure, delightful
as it lowers white blankets over the landscape,
inspiring poets, artists, musicians!
But to blizzard victims, snow is foe, not friend.
Wind is bracing, cooling, the fresh harbinger of spring.
But to typhoon and hurricane victims
or to the prairie farmer, cyclone-caught,
such wanton wind is the work of the Devil.
Dynamic nature mirrors life itself:
A gift for joy, beauty, growth, love;
yet life can turn and show its cruel face
and bestow pain, loss, hurt, sorrow --
even death before its time.
Our stance perchance is in Thanatopsis
from another poet of the past, Willliam Cullen Bryant:
So live, that when thy summons comes….
Meanwhile the world cannot be too much with us.
It is our dwelling place through all generations –
our home, where we belong.
