The Little Green Pen

Green Poems for Poetry Month!

Not only is April Earth Month, it's also National Poetry Month. to celebrate, here are a few of my favorite green-minded poems:

The first is painted on my daughter's wall and is our family mantra:

Hurt No Living Thing

Hurt no living thing:

Ladybird, nor butterfly,

Nor moth with dusty wind,

Nor cricket chirping cheerily,

Nor grasshopper so light of leap,

Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,

Nor harmless worms that creep.

-Christina Rossetti

The second perfectly sums up my feelings about plastic, especially plastic toys!

A Prayer for a Carpenter

About most subjects

I am quite elastic,

But I cannot stand

A world of plastic.

Plastic flowers, plastic tables,

Plastic window, plastic door,

Plastic, plastic,

I abhor.

When I die,

And if I'm good,

I pray that heaven

be built of wood.

-Louis Phillips

The third is typical, brilliantly witty Ogden Nash:

Song Of the Open Road

I think that I shall never see,

A billboard lovely as a tree.

Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,

I'll never see a tree at all.

-Odgen Nash

Do you have a favorite poem that celebrates the earth? Leave a comment and tell me about it!