The Outstretched Earth, Jane Mead

Do you know what whole fields are?

They are fields with a dog and a moon. Do you know the answer — for the many?

Except there would be vineyards. Meaning there would, as usual, be commerce.

Money, and a game of sorts to play it.

Meanwhile — Emma lost in the cover- crop.

Top of her head bobbing through mustard- flower.

It is, after all, still here — The real world, the outstretched earth, Rain, soil, copper for pennies.

Lullaby in Fracktown, Lilace Mellin Guignard

Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes.

You know that Mama loves you lollipops and Daddy still has a job to lose. So put on a party hat. We’ll play the kazoos loud and louder from the mountaintop. Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes and dance the polka with pink kangaroos, dolphin choirs singing “flip-flop, flipflop.”

Hey, Daddy still has a job to lose — don’t be afraid. Close your eyes, snooze, because today our suns have flared and dropped.

Tomorrow when you wake, put on your blue shoes.

Eat a good breakfast. Be good in school. Good boys go to college goody gumdrops so someday too you’ll have a job to lose.

Waste trucks clatter by as the gray bird coos.

Flames pour forth when the faucet’s unstopped.

Child, when you’re sad put on your blue shoes.

For now, Daddy still has a job to lose.

Earth Day, Jane Yolen

I am the Earth And the Earth is me. Each blade of grass, Each honey tree, Each bit of mud, And stick and stone Is blood and muscle, Skin and bone. And just as I Need every bit Of me to make My body fit, So Earth needs Grass and stone and tree And things that grow here Naturally. That’s why we Celebrate this day. That’s why across The world we say: As long as life, As dear, as free, I am the Earth And the Earth is me.

Andrea Gutierrez is the managing editor of the Bryan County News.

Poems found on poetryfoundation.org.