Down Here

The most useful item brought back from the moon

Isn’t one of the moon rocks but the photograph

Of an earthrise, the beautiful, blue-green globe

Floating alone in a black sky.

Those who look at it every morning are likely

To wish that Earth Day came more often

And enticed more people to join the cleanup.

Does the photograph tell us to cancel funding

For more space exploration? No, it merely suggests

We need to treat our home with the consideration

That it deserves before we assume that other

Inhabitants of the Milky Way

Will want to welcome us to their neighborhood.

Meanwhile an Earth Day pamphlet may suggest,

If we’d like a fresh perspective, that we turn

To the tall tree in our own backyard

And climb the ladder we lean against it

Up to the lookout. From there, it’s not hard

To imagine looking down from a perch still higher

On a house and yard grown small and frail.

What if our homestead, the pamphlet asks,

Isn’t the dead weight we sometimes feel

Stooping our shoulders, if it’s more

A loose assembly of matchsticks and moss

That the first strong gust may sweep away?

From high in the tree, the white sheets

Drying on the line with our other laundry—

Shirts and blouses, pajamas and underwear—

Flutter like tiny prayer flags,

Petitioning us to join them on the ground.