The GOOD Earth...

For a few minutes yesterday I watched a queen bumblebee nest questing. Like a small bomber she was flying at treetop level, coursing back and forth over the ground. She had overwintered in some protected place and her task at hand was to find a suitable nest site to raise a new generation of her kind. Flying low next to my feet, I watched her investigate two abandoned vole holes along the fenceline. She disappeared into each for a few seconds only to emerge a short time later, having decided, I surmised, the site lacked the specs necessary for a suitable home. She flew on into the neighbor's pasture, disappeared in the high grass and though I waited for her questing to resume, I never saw her again.

Today is Earth Day, the forty-ninth anniversary, if memory serves. I was around back then for the very first one, teaching at the time in a small high school in the northern part of the state. I remember the day was spent free of traditional instruction. Students instead attended short presentations by local naturalists and members of the U.S. Forest Service. It was a day well spent, raising, if not students' awareness, certainly their appreciation of the pristine wilderness and natural beauty that was so much a part of their daily lives.

Something is killing my bees. My bees used to thrive here on our slim acre. Now winter after winter I lose most of my hives and come spring have to replace them. Other beekeepers are suffering the same plight. Some lose all their hives. Others, most of them. I know for a fact certain species of butterflies, due to habitat destruction, are no longer found in their former haunts. These may seem minor issues to some, but to me they mean something is wrong out there, something is awry on the "Big Blue Marble," our planet Earth, the only one that keeps us--thanks to gravity--grounded. Not only "the times, they are a' changin'," but our planet is a'changin', too. And I believe we, as a species, are significant players in this change.

Whether you accept that Homo sapiens is complicit in climate change and global warming or assume the cavalier attitude that shifting weather patterns, the receding glaciers and polar ice caps are natural cycles, have occurred since the beginning of time, are to be expected, the natural course of things...something with which we as a fragile species have to deal, set aside a moment or two today away from the distraction of your technology and do one or more of the following:

Examine the architecture of a flower. Even a dandelion is a miracle. No need to hug a tree. Just look at one. And not just "look" at it, but "see"it as a living thing that shares this planet with you. Note the branches, how they grow, the leaves, the needles, its bark. A tree is a "territorial view" in and of itself. Consider a lake, a river, stream, creek, puddle or raindrop as more than just water, but as an essential component of life, your life and your children's, and that of all living things, a precious and irreplaceable commodity. Take note of the creatures of the air: birds, insects in flight...commune with a cloud. All are of this planet, all play a role in the grand scheme that is nature.

Or consider that bumblebee queen, her quest to propagate future generations of her kind, her offspring and the offspring of their offspring, insure the survival and perpetuation of her species. Her Earth is our one and only Earth. A healthy planet is a legacy for her children--and ours. An astronaut viewing Earth through his space capsule window covered the small, blue orb with his thumb and thought, "Everything I know from my life lies there under my thumb." Words to think about on this Earth Day, 2019.

Post script: Or as couched by a real poet:

                                    The World is too much with us; late and soon,
                                     Getting and spending we lay waste our powers;
                                     Little we see in nature that is ours;
                                     We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
                                     This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
                                     The winds that will be howling at all hours,
                                     And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
                                     For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
                                     It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
                                     A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
                                     So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
                                     Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
                                     Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
                                     Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

                                                                                   William Wordsworth, 1807





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