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Mark Williams – Coyote and the Full Moon

“It was nighttime, getting cooler and I’d been drawn out of the house by the bonfire
Coyote lit in the middle of my cul-de-sac. “The neighbors will complain,” I said. “I sure hope so,” Coyote said” http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/03/05/mark-williams-coyote-and-full-moon/

Gary Snyder – Piute Creek

“A million summers, night air still and the rocks warm. Sky over endless mountains. All the junk that goes with being human drops away, hard rock wavers even the heavy present seems to fail this bubble of a heart. Words and books like a small creek off a high ledge gone in the dry air.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/11/19/gary-snyder-piute-creek/

B.J. Elzinga – Remembering the Dead

“In the forest smell of fresh cuts overpowers the stench of humanity. Rings attest a longevity beyond human endurance. How long have these gentle giants stood strong and proud? What have they seen? As another truck screeches by eyes focus on flat bed. Tears, like sawdust, fly.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/03/13/b-j-elzinga-remembering-the-dead/

mlw – untitled

“I think of my degree from the school that wants to cut down its oaks. The school with the extinct California grizzly on its football helmets.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/01/24/mlw-untitled/

Duff – Bison Release Poem

“All I think about are bison. I have watched them die. They crowd out other thoughts
sweeping in hordes darkening the horizons of my plain mind, trampling me. I am grazed now, bison, I am trampled. Go now, to other horizons and I will recover for you. I release you from the park of my psyche.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/05/30/duff-bison-release-poem/

Michael Adams – Transformation

“Sometimes in snow he glimpses the two-footed tracks of those still upright, stands on hind legs, drawn to them. Then remembers– the close, warm den berries, fish, crystal streams. They’ve stopped calling, his teeth are strong, he eats the inner bark of pines and raspberries. His coat is full and soft.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/11/08/michael-adams-transformation/

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To sustain and inspire all this please send ecopoetry books and $tuff to:

Warriorpoets c/o Deane Rimerman PO Box 2640 Oly, WA. 98507

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Find all our poems here: http://armedwithvisions.com

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Click Here for Quote of the Week: http://blog.armedwithvisions.com/quote-of-the-week

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6 Eco-Poems Just Now Updated:

Gary Lawless – Treat Each Bear: There are no more deer trails, no more flyways. Treat each animal as sacred, each minute our last. Ghost hooves. Ghost skulls. Death rattles and dry bones. http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/05/17/treat-each-bear/

Tom Hirons – Sometimes A Wild God: The wild god stands in your kitchen. Ivy is taking over your sideboard; mistletoe has moved into the lampshades and wrens have begun to sing an old song in the mouth of your kettle. ‘I haven’t much,’ you say and give him the worst of your food. He sits at the table, bleeding. He coughs up foxes. There are otters in his eyes. http://armedwithvisions.com/2015/03/17/tom-hirons-sometimes-a-wild-god/

Karen Coulter – Friendly Takeovers: It happens as soon as you turn your back–the eminent domain seizure of “your” land nature filling the void. If I stop lighting fires in the woodstove as the weather first warms by the next cold snap it may be too late–bluebirds or blackbirds nesting in the stovepipe the little ones already peeping. http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/12/16/karen-coulter-friendly-takeovers/

Kirk Lumpkin – Here Before: Salmon lived here before my people came. Salmon lived here before my people and the way that they lived, the way that they lived, they could’ve lived that way forever. They could’ve lived that way forever. Here here on the brink of the world, here on the brink of the world. http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/03/05/kirk-lumpkin-here-before/

Dick Barnes – Bagdad Chase Road: “Not that you didn’t dig the mines and make this road to them; but it’s your absence today that earns my gratitude. Thanks too for the monument and bronze tablet marking where Ragtown was, and the railroad down the hill to Ludlow, so I can rejoice that it’s already all disappeared with hardly a trace.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2014/04/03/dick-barnes-bagdad-chase-road/

Roman Sanchez – Buffalo Poem: “I have looked deep into their eyes and felt their power run through me like the river from which banks they have fed off and I too have been nurtured. And in my hand, I have held their hair plucked from the side of a tree. And I can see that it is no different from mine.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2014/02/15/roman-sanchez-buffalo-poem/

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Click Here for Quote of the Week: http://blog.armedwithvisions.com/quote-of-the-week

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Click Here for Song of the Week: Goodbye California By Zoe Zephyr: https://youtu.be/TU4UFfCC58g

“Singing unsung resistance ballads for our peops & beloved embattled planet, I am Zoe Zephyr and the Big Bang ~ and all Y’ALL are the Big Bangers. Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. Keep loving. Keep fighting. An army of lovers cannot be vanquished.”

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6 Eco-Poems Just Now Updated:

Carol Weston – Together on the Hill: “Humans might call it a language. We know how to speak without the waste of words. Our time is muscular. Our dreams run through our muscles in the night. Our ears turn to other wolf voices.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2011/12/26/carol-weston-together-on-the-hill/

Craig Stehr – For The Earth Warriors: “All the way down to the ocean floor. In flux in the murkiness with soundings. Rumbling from below bottom dwellers. Emissions escape from fissures and trembling. Are the code of transmissions sent up to the surface to land dwellers and the myriad species, trees, plants, mountains, rivers, streams?” http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/01/04/craig-stehr-for-the-earth-warriors/

Mary De La Vallette – What Is It You Do?:  “What is it you do? Are you merely food For some other important being In an infinitesimal order We barely comprehend? Or are you, yourself…” http://armedwithvisions.com/2011/12/30/mary-de-la-vallette-what-is-it-you-do/

Mac Lojowski – Horizon: “Even fir peaked arrows point in gratitude–They shout, Look! This moon, this moment.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/04/02/mac-lojowski-horizon/

Craig Oare – Treesit TV: “At 9:08, in the midst of the usual trivia, something strange and new appears: a woman named Remedy, living in a redwood, five months long and fifty yards high, pleading with all her heart and soul for the last few ancient trees. A true voice in the wilderness, for one minute.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/07/21/craig-oare-treesit-tv/

Karla Linn Merrifield – The Real Florida Flora and Fauna Sutra: “…a West Indian manatee warming in the springs toward the end of winter and joining them in my voice flew red-shouldered hawks, osprey and nearly every night the barred owls.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/11/04/karla-linn-merrifield-real-florida-flora-fauna-sutra/

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To sustain and inspire all this please send ecopoetry books and $tuff to: Warriorpoets c/o Deane Rimerman PO Box 2640 Oly, WA. 98507

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Find all our poems here: http://armedwithvisions.com

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Click Here for Quote of the Week: http://blog.armedwithvisions.com/quote-of-the-week

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Click Here for Song of the Week By Zoe Zephyr: https://youtu.be/U88Iqcy8AI0 “Singing unsung resistance ballads for our peops & beloved embattled planet, I am Zoe Zephyr and the Big Bang, and all Y’ALL are the Big Bangers! Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. Keep loving. Keep fighting. An army of lovers cannot be vanquished.”

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6 Eco-Poems Just Now Updated:

Wendell Berry – Peace of Wild Things
“In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/04/09/wendell-berry-peace-of-wild-things/

Rayn Roberts – Secrets From Mountains Above Nagoya
“In layers of fern and limb a sudden stillness, the mist has cleared– a deer emerges, walks to the edge of water, drinks, and moves on completely content, without regard for the white iris blooming there.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2015/02/06/rayn-roberts-secrets-mountains-nagoya/

Susan Kelly-DeWitt – Salmon
“We came there. We carried our eyes and our baggage of witnessing. We carried our awe like a caudal fin. The willows crept down to the river’s edge and hung their heads like sad old men, trailing all their living silver green leaves, their dusky olive leaves the color of salmon skin.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/10/30/susan-kelly-dewitt-salmon/

Nanao Sakaki – Break the Mirror
“Sleeping in the desert with stars. Building a shelter in the mountains. Farming the ancient way. Singing with coyotes. Singing against nuclear war— I’ll never be tired of life.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2011/09/05/nanao-sakaki-break-the-mirror/

Robert Frost – Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2011/12/22/robert-frost-stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening

Gary Lawless – Caribouddhism
“She is the color of glacier, iceberg, snow and light. She turns and disappears, into the woods. She is caribou,
she is iceberg she is message, and dream.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2014/09/10/gary-lawless-caribouddhism/

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To sustain and inspire all this please send ecopoetry books and $tuff to: Warriorpoets c/o Deane Rimerman PO Box 2640 Oly, WA. 98507

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Find all our poems here: http://armedwithvisions.com

First ever edition of  the weekly whatever we’re gonna call it poems to start your week with… As in we’re going through and updating all the multimedia in the poems on the Warriorpoet website, plus Dennis has some special features like quote of the week and other stuff he’ll be telling you about soon.

We’re looking forward to as much feedback as possible…  We’ll even mail if you dollar to participate. I mean if it works for Gallup Surveys, why can’t it work for us. To particpiate please send your mailing address and $2 to PO Box below. 🙂

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Click Here for Quote of the Week: http://blog.armedwithvisions.com/quote-of-the-week

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Eco-Organization of the week: https://earthfirstjournal.org/

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6 Poems Just Now Updated:

“I pick up the glass and watch the Great Nebula of Andromeda swim like a phosphorescent amoeba slowly around the pole. Far away in distant cities fat-hearted men are planning to murder you while you sleep.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/05/01/kenneth-rexroth-great-nebula-of-andromeda/

“If you’re okay with plastics but disgusted by blood. Or if when it starts to rain you run indoors to stay dry instead of rushing outdoors to play–you could be an alien.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/11/28/lone-wolf-circles-you-might-be-an-alien/

“Trying hard to swallow ginger steps of braille feeling toward that sound willing eyes to penetrate the void. That’s when the cave came to life walls waving to a hum of nervous wings” http://armedwithvisions.com/2011/11/02/walkin-jim-stoltz-bat-cave/

“This is the land of the Indian Paintbrush, a place with more centuries than the days of man. At sunset there falls onto this land a wonderful desolation. Slanting sunlight turns arroyos to black currents in a sea of tall, yellow grass. http://armedwithvisions.com/2012/11/24/philip-wright-high-plains/

“Far below cars jam and curse from streets to avenues in toxic unclarity, a cacophony of misery. …Honking and flapping high through the crisp fall morn the geese re-enact their ancient journey south–then back north in spring. http://armedwithvisions.com/2013/12/30/joel-hammer-migrations/

“…a path to calamity and ruin is –if it’s any consolation– a gorgeous swallowtail, a brilliant mix of bright orange and vivid yellow with a soft dusting of light brown along the edges.” http://armedwithvisions.com/2014/05/15/billy-collins-butterfly-effect

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To sustain and inspire all this please send ecopoetry books and $tuff to: Warriorpoets c/o Deane Rimerman PO Box 2640 Oly, WA. 98507

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Fridays for future. The school strike continues! #climatestrike #klimatstrejk #FridaysForFuture pic.twitter.com/5jej011Qtp

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 16, 2018

Then The Whole World Decides To Join Her!

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish climate activist. In August 2018 she became a prominent figure in a student strike outside the Swedish parliament building, raising awareness of global warming. In November 2018 she spoke at TEDxStockholm, and in December 2018 she addressed the COP24 UN climate conference. Wikipedia

Declaration of the Rights of the Southern Resident Orcas

We, the peoples and natural communities of the Salish Sea, do DECLARE the following: Eight million people and the survival of countless species depend on a healthy Salish Sea. Yet human-induced impacts such as climate change, ocean acidification, increased shipping traffic, dams and other fish passage barriers, as well as wastewater and sewage runoff have contributed to the pollution and degradation of the Salish Sea. The Southern Resident orcas are critically endangered with only 74 remaining at the time of this declaration.

Please sign this petition: http://legalrightsforthesalishsea.org/petition/

More than two dozen futurists, environmental scientists and others from around the world recently put their heads together to do a “horizon scan” of emerging trends that are getting relatively little attention but have the potential to have substantial impact on biodiversity conservation in the future.

The research team, led by William Sutherland, professor of conservation biology at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, then narrowed the list down to 15 top trends poised to affect biodiversity for better or for worse in the months ahead.

“By increasing recognition of the issues described in this paper, we aim to encourage dialogue about their potential negative and positive impacts on conservation, in order to guide proactive solutions and harness future opportunities,” the researchers write.

Learn more about the details of the list below here: https://ensia.com/notable/biodiversity-trends-2019/

Antarctic Sea Floor

More-than-ever Mercury

Plastic Solutions as Problems

Sunscreen Switchout

A New River for China 

DIY Weather on the Tibetan Plateau

Salt-Tolerant Rice

Open Season on Gene Editing

Fishy Oilseed Crops

Cherry-picking Plant Microbiomes

Extinction in the Indo-Malay islands

Deeper Sea Fishing

Microbial Protein for Livestock

Buying Insurance on Earth’s Behalf

The Montreal Protocol: Regulation or Guideline?

by Dennis Fritzinger

It’s hard to pin down what makes a good Earth First! poem. Humor’s a plus, but there’s a lot of funny poems that aren’t Earth First! in the least.

Maybe an Earth First! poem has what Chris Manes called “Green Rage” in his book by the same name. Not just “green” and not just “biocentric” (though that’s important and necessary) but with a rage component thrown in. If the poet is royally pissed that helps a lot.

Anger is a useful emotion of course since it propels you to do something. It’s on the red side of the spectrum. On the other side, the blue side, I would put spirituality. A feeling of oneness with Nature, with the Universe. Maybe that’s too woo for you, but it exists and is an equally valid watermark for an Earth First! poem.

Rick Scarce, in his book “Eco-warriors”, basically said Earth First! poetry is something Earth First!ers do in their off time, that is, when they aren’t making mischief for oil companies, coal barons, uranium mines, and timber extractors.

I can see that. The passion of the struggle flows over into the poetry. It becomes words on the printed page.

One might be reasonably confused into thinking Nature poetry and Earth First! poetry are the same thing. They are not. Nature poetry is a different animal–descriptive, but not proscriptive. Dispassionate, not passionate. Nature poetry can invite you to be an ecotourist. Earth First! poetry will invite you to wrenching ‘dozers.