“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer in BRAIDING SWEETGRASS
When I chose this quote for the Poetry Sisters’ June challenge, I felt its truth in my bones. Yet, when I sat down to write a poem inspired by it, I fought hard with its ideas (as the pages of notes and thoughts in my notebook will attest).
There is SO much wrong with our world. We have DONE so much wrong TO our world. The problems seem insurmountable. How could there ever be any semblance of wholeness again when we’ve obliterated entire ecosystems, coral reefs, and rainforests? Not to mention the damage done by industrial agriculture, strip mining, offshore oil rigs, and fracking. (This would be the weeping part of the quote. Or perhaps more accurately, the wailing.)
And yet, scientists and entrepreneurs are discovering and advocating for all kinds of innovative ways to heal our lands and waters and air. There is hope. But will it be enough, and in time?
What is the impetus, the motivation, the “doorway” that moves someone to work to save our plant? The cynical side of my brain says, “Well, duh — it’s money! Money and power. Nothing will change unless there’s money to be made and power to be secured.” But the optimistic side of my brain whispers, “No. It’s love. Love really is the answer: love of a place and its plants and animals is what it takes to inspire someone to save it.”
Ultimately, the whispering side of my brain won, and I found a poem that skews towards simplistic, maybe poem for children.
Love Really Is the Answer The world is broken. We have done it. No dissembling – we must own it: global warming mass extinctions plastic pollution deforestation. Damage done; blame accepted. Now next steps: how to fix it? Many challenges: multiple solutions. Some are obvious, others unproven. Proceed with a love that fuels all decisions to save species, biomes, habitats, and oceans. Love your yard, your street, your city. Love with science and responsibility. Love takes commitment, collaboration, and work. Exactly what’s needed to repair our Earth. ©Mary Lee Hahn, 2023
Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with this month:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Irene has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Live Your Poem.
BONUS BOOK REVIEWS
LITTLE LAND
by Diana Sudyka
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2023
review copy is mine (because I loved it so much I had to own it!)
If you have admired Diana Sudyka’s illustrations for Joyce Sidman’s and Liz Garton Scanlon’s books, you will fall head over heels for LITTLE LAND. It has everything: gorgeous details in the cover and endpaper illustrations AND the book’s cover has a different illustration from its dust jacket. On the back of the dust jacket is the book’s Big Idea: “Do you know a little bit of land? No matter how big or little, you can take care of it. And when you give love to something, it will give back to you.”
The book begins with the geological history of a “little bit of land.” It is a history of the land’s change over time. But then, “…some change does not belong to the land. It belongs to people.” And we see how people have covered the land and taken from the land until the balance is tipped and change seems unstoppable. (two GORGEOUS and heart-breaking page spreads here)
But even when things seem unstoppable, unrecognizable, and beyond repair…with help and care, life and land can find a way…
The way out of this mess is reclaim our connection to the land. Sudyka even paraphrases Robin Wall Kimmerer’s important ideas about reciprocity in her author’s note: “…Earth has always shared its gifts with us and…we need to give back to it in return.”
Love really is the answer.
.
If you’re more in the mood for adult books on this theme, I recommend these, by Camille T. Dungy:
I’m only a little ways into this memoir, but I’m loving it! Readers can follow Camille’s journey in transforming her homogenous Fort Collins, CO suburban yard into a heterogenous haven for native plants and all kinds of pollinators and birds. Here’s a quote I loved:
Whether a plot in a yard or pots in a window, every politically engaged person should have a garden. By politically engaged, I mean everyone with a vested interest in the direction the people on this planet take in relationship to others. We should all take some time to plant life in the soil. Even when such planting isn’t easy.
p.10
Camille is the editor of this book of poetry that makes a fabulous companion book to round out your reading! (And which was a gift to me from today’s PF Hostess Extraordinaire, Irene Latham! Thanks again, Irene!!)
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Your poem cuts to heart of the problem and spells out the answer with the perfect 4-letter word: love. Inspired poem and book recommendations, Mary Lee. Thank you! 🙂
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Marylee, oh my, what a trove of treats you have given us. I agree with Bridget and you-love. Your poem moved me. It reads like a poignant, inspirational, and important picture book. I’m looking forward to reading more about the books you reviewed. Thank you for sharing all of your treats and inspiration. 🙂
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Your poem is a beautiful ode to love, Mary Lee, and an important reminder of the good stewards of earth we can be if we keep love as our intention. I’m looking forward to reading LITTLE LAND.
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Proceed with love. Yes! And I saw this beautiful LAND book at ALA! Swoon. SOIL has been on my tbr list since before it was released. Thank you for the reminder and for your poem and for your big heart! xo
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Thanks for this earth-soil-robust focused post Mary Lee! What a quandary we’re in but we must take action and preserve -repair our earth, and yes with love and science leading as your poem beautifully and wholeheartedly describes! Thanks too for these interrelated book recommendations.
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I love that love is the answer. It’s the true answer to most questions actually. Your poem expresses your real concerns as well as a well crafted answer. I’m finally becoming the gardener I’ve longed to be. My little butterfly garden is flourishing. Small acts matter.
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Mary Lee! I was going to tell you about Soil and how I thought you might like it. I am reading it now, too. Love your poem!
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Love that last stanza! I think it will have to be a combo of the 1% realizing that money and power can’t ensure their comfort if the planet is destroyed and love from the rest of us. (I was just at a Whole Foods and I had to stop to see my people when I first came in — my “people” being the plants, haha.)
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I love this so much:
Love your yard,
your street, your city.
Taking care of our planet will only happen when enough people love it. Thanks, Mary Lee.
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I read and shared ‘Little Land’ recently, Mary Lee, and it fits the love you write about in your poem, if only many would accept that they do love their own “little land” and will do their best for it. Your poem is not long but tells the message we all need to hear over & over. I would add that love for my children and grandchildren, then others’ children and grandchildren is my motivation to act! Thanks for the other books, too, both new to me!
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Well, goodness–it’s like our poems grew from the same seed despite my complete inattention to the RWK quote! I am very excited for the LITTLE LAND book and it’s reminding me that I did a project a few times with K and 2 using ROXABOXEN and MATTLAND called “YouLand.” We studied maps and geographical features and then made plasticene landscapes in lunch trays, named our lands and then wrote about them. There was a lot of love and care and hmm wouldn’t that be an interesting poetry workshop over 6 weeks? AND I have SOIL queued up on my Audible next. : ) In this poem I love the carefully consistent near rhymes, and of course, the love. We can do it!
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Mary Lee, your commentary before the poem struck me as a necessary one. To become earth-conscious, we need to love nature. You are right about your poem being simplistic – yet it is a call to action. The last two sentences share the need to LOVE the earth and repair the damage. Wonderful thoughts.
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Mary Lee, I finally finished my #PoetryPals June challenge at https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2023/07/exchange-is-creation.html.
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Such a beautiful quote from RWK. I love this book. I’ve been listening to portions for months. It’s soothing, funny, lovely. I’m in a beautiful part of the world where there is so much love right now. I just want to read this quote and poem to the gathering. The last stanza sums up our gathering.
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I think love is the answer. We have to care above all. This post is just full of good stuff. I love Diana Sudyka’s art. I think Maria Gianferrari has a fungi book coming out illustrated by her and it’s gorgeous! And Camille Dungy’s work has been on my radar, but I haven’t read any. Must remedy that!
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I think in the end it was the perfection of the quotation that did me in… The idea of too much damage, and the fear of being not enough in ourselves. The individual is constantly being pitted against damage done collectively and generationally, and usually all we do is feel guilty and haunted. I like how your poems takes those feelings and packs them away tidily so next steps can come.
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Yes, love is the answer! Well said, Mary Lee!
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I became depressed when I started reading your introduction, but your poem made me hopeful. Can we love our way out of any situation? I sure hope so. The first stanza is terrific and such a call to action.
Thanks too for sharing the bonus book reviews.
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Hooray for the whispering sign of your brain and optimism! I especially love the directness of your next to last stanza–love your yard, your street, your city. Thanks for spotlighting Little Land, which I haven’t seen yet. I own and really enjoyed Black Nature–will also look for Soil (I think I heard her speaking about this one on NPR.)
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I’m a believer, Mary Lee — love is the answer. And love finds a way. Thank you for the hope in your poem. And I will put SOIL on my TBR list – as I’m also a planter-of-seeds.
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Love reading your process and knowing that love is the answer. I’m not sure that I’ll read the book, but I love the quote. “We should all take some time to plant life in the soil.” That takes me back to working in the garden with my dad. Requesting Little Land now and hoping it comes in before the move. I feel lost with the oncoming challenge of being between library systems.
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A deceptively simple answer, but yes, it’s the answer to so many questions. And there’s reason for hope, as I see a lot of love in the world. In the midst of all the devastation, love is always rising from the ashes.
Thanks, too, for the bonus book reviews.
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This is a lovely sentiment. ❤️
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