But then who will celebrate Earth Day?

Many happy returns of the day. Here is my laurel on the waves, a poem by Robinson Jeffers.

Their Beauty Has More Meaning

Yesterday morning enormous the moon hung low on the ocean,
Round and yellow-rose in the glow of dawn;
The night-herons flapping home wore dawn on their
wings. Today
black is the ocean, black and sulphur the sky,
And white seas leap. I honestly do not know which day
is more beautiful.
I know that tomorrow or next year or in twenty years
I shall not see these things -- and it does not matter, it
does not hurt;
They will be here. And when the whole human race
Has been like me rubbed out, they will still be here:
storms, moon and ocean,
Dawn and the birds. And I say this: their beauty
has more meaning
Than the whole human race and the race of birds.

--Robinson Jeffers, 1947


I hope you liked that; Robinson Jeffers, the poet to read when you are sick of trivia posing as crisis, sick of noise posing as passion. The man built with his own hands a stone house and tower by the sea for his family. And his poetry is the same kind of work, a rolling uphill of the rocks which frustrate him and mean the most to him: humans and our capacity for endless trivia in the face of our potential power and dignity.