Theme Thursday: Earth

Well, a lot's forgotten, isn't it, as much as is remembered . . . first Earth Day spent in western New England at the ends of, well, the earth itself. That is what it was, my parents having flung us up there from deepest Long Island. Perched up above, looking out at the smoke coming from the commune across the little mountain range. You could see their little buses and yurts, if you looked hard enough. My mother in her element, though. Dirt road out front. That wind against the neck, waiting for the schoolbus. Making the garden, that's no longer there. No hiding this time.

A Physics
–Heather McHugh

When you get down to it, Earth
has our own great ranges
of feeling—Rocky, Smoky, Blue—
and a heart that can melt stones.

The still pools fill with sky,
as if aloof, and we have eyes
for all of this—and more, for Earth's
reminding moon. We too are ruled

by such attractions—spun and swaddled
rocked and lent a light. We run
our clocks on wheels, our trains
on time. But all the while we want

to love each other endlessly—not only for
a hundred years, not only six feet up and down.
We want the suns and moons of silver
in ourselves, not only counted coins in a cup. The whole

idea of love was not to fall. And neither was
the whole idea of God. We put him well
above ourselves, because we meant,
in time, to measure up.