npm19: all of the above 22/23

Here's one favorite of many for classroom use by Tom Chapin.  This year urgency crept into the lesson.  I think I scared some 2nd graders today.  But we'll stay calm, BE COOL, and take action to bring down Earth's fever.



The Bad News about This Pretty Planet
 by Ms. Mordhorst                             by John Forster & Tom Chapin © 1988

Have you heard?
This pretty planet is dying,
spinning hotly through space,
and where You're used to seeing a garden, 
where You're hoping to find a harbor, 
instead You're finding an unholy place
of flood and fire, bare and burned.

Gentle blue chokes on giant islands of plastic;
perilous winds spin us around.
All through the long night of ignorance 
we waited, we wasted. Now can we do
what it takes to be safe
'til the morning light?

Go here to read a piece subtitled "In the face of unprecedented assaults on planet Earth, what good is poetry?"