David De Lossy/Getty Images
DCL
Poetry has been around, well...forever. But the green movement? Maybe since Silent Spring? The first Earth Day? The point is that there hasn't been enough time to develop a large body of eco-poems. So, until this genre develops, we have to delve into the past to find the greenest verses ever written. My nominee is "With Animals," by Walt Whitman:
I think I could turn and live with animals they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long, They do not sweat and whine about their condition; They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of owning things. Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.
What eco-poems have moved you?
