“Earth, Sometimes I Try to Play It Casual”
Air Date: Week of August 2, 2024
“Earth, what I want is to sit gentle under your twilight purple.” – Catherine Pierce (Photo: Bowen Chin, Unsplash)
Poet Catherine Pierce reads her poem, “Earth, Sometimes I Try to Play It Casual” about the meaning of “celebrating the Earth” by being present to the wonders around us.
Transcript
Earth, Sometimes I Try to Play It Casual
like Hey mercury, hey malachite, I’m busy today,
can’t stop to marvel, but always my blood is saying
O god you starsprung miracle. It’s self-preservation,
letting myself believe laundry matters,
letting myself believe there’s anything other than
egrets and oceans and vast moss carpets and
the finite heart of every single person I love.
Earth, you terrify me—you are fierce green
and honeysuckle, you are herds of wild ponies,
and you are leaving, always. Is it any wonder
some days I look at my laptop instead of out
the window? Every time I glance up
there you are, quaking me with your fern fronds
and silver frost. O you of the rhyolite mountains.
You of the dew-hung web. You are lemon quartz
and quicksand. Muskrats and starfish. How
could I be any way but staggered? O blue spruce,
O white fir, O green forever, you know
my nonchalance is a sham. It’s so hard to admit
our real desires. Earth, what I want is to sit gentle
under your twilight purple, watch your bats
hunt and dive. What I want is to know about
endings and still love each wingbeat, each shade
of the boundless, darkening sky.
Catherine Pierce is the author of four books of poems including Danger Days and The Tornado Is the World and is professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State University. (Photo: Megan Bean / Mississippi State University)
That’s poet Catherine Pierce. Stay tuned to Living on Earth.
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