Earth Day 2021: Continuing Education

I sat

Reading about Bernardone and Thoreau
Continuing Ed. about
Seeing the tree within the forest
Seeing the individual within humanity

Listening to Denver
Relearning about the inspiration
Found within a landscape
Reconnecting to the flora, fauna, and each other

Remembering a temperature inversion and smog in Donora, PA
And the Clean Air Act
Remembering the Cuyahoga River fire
And the EPA

Thinking about the struggle for
Peace, justice and equality
On this universally obscure planet

I stood up
To walk paths well known to me
I noticed changes and
What has remained the same

I thought

Children of the Earth
We are all one
It is in our genes

Celebrate the day
Celebrate our existence
Celebrate the Earth

Paul Cech has been writing poetry since 1970. Several of his poems have been published as Saturday Poems in the Pittsburgh- Post Gazette and the Thomas Merton Center of Pittsburgh has published several of his poems in NewPeople. Read other articles by Paul.