Semester 36: Enviromental Seminar Found Poem

The following poem was written by students of Susan’s Environmental Seminar class. Each contributed a line about their connection to nature.

Found Poem by Semester 36 Environmental Seminar Class

When I was little, I viewed the world as a place

where no bad could happen.

The outdoors and I have never really connected.

I loved playing in the woods.

Where were the trees? There were barely any trees left.

Being surrounded by green leaves and

singing birds helps easy my mind.

Because it was much easier to ignore it altogether.

I played outside a lot.

Why shed tears over something you don’t care about?

When we would go visit my grandfather, I would

always help out in the garden, planting bulbs.

It was this reason why many of my friends chose to spend the majority of their time indoors.

I learned to love trees and wildlife and not

to take them for granted.

I didn’t go outside as much as before.

Being young, the thought of the world ending or at

least slowly dying, with humans being the killers,

never occurred to me.

The better the technology, the more wasting of the

environment.

I would describe my relationship with nature as two very good friends

But they live far away from each other

And one has a very busy schedule…

Our natural world is made out to be this whole ecosystem

full of huge, numerous problems with no resolutions in the

near future.

If kids aren’t in nature a lot, they have no reason to love it.

I have known from a very early age the state of our planet

and the dangers it faces, and have felt that debilitating fear

of the continuing destruction of these last great places.

It’s more effective to teach kids to love nature

first and introduce them to the problems later.

When I think about the destruction of the environment, I

get emotional and decide that it is better not to think

about it.

I was told that it wasn’t my generations’ fault,

but it was our job to fix it.

When I’m on my phone a lot, and at school, and busy with

social life, I forget about nature.

I want to help the Earth but the way social media

tends to spin it, it is beginning to seem like a lost cause.

Maybe that’s part of why I’m at OA.

To get that connection with nature.

To really care what happens,

and not make snide comments from behind.

-Give Thanks.