Earth Day ~ Stardate 4/22/08

I was young, oh, so very young
when the red veil parted,
spoke to me in parables of waves,
tossed about in an angry sea
restless in the third  eye of a perfect storm,

melancholy dunes of sand lifted,
as if I were Moses
momentarily perplexed
by the Red Sea,
felling civilizations
with my Shepard’s staff,
as if mockingbirds sang
David's Psalms of Love
and serpents rose
to the occasion of time,
begat all these Empires
under a bloody sun,

they spoke to me in every tongue,
I was climbing higher and higher
Jacob's ladder
and the view
from my speeding car
broke the silence with
a screeching halt--

there, right in front of me,
dying, proof of this almighty dread
this pitiful death on every highway,

in every breath I take
in the waterfall of a hard black rain,
recycled volcanic ash
from the beginning of time
immemorial,

we are but moments of violence,
movements of tender leaves and blossoms,
opening
to another Earth Day,
stewards,
passing through...

we leave fistfuls of fecund earth and salt licks,

mountainous caravans
of all these tears,

with every hello and every goodbye,
passing shadows of a long dark night
we seek
a final equilibrium.

...like falling stars.



I am also including an important necessary message.  (If inappropriate, please advise.)

Sent to me by a friend, who wrote:

There's this traditional folk song, one verse of which states that "If
living were a thing that money could buy / You know the rich would
live, and the poor would die." It is sad that it seems to becoming
reality. However, with action we may be able to bring it's chorus,
"All my trials, Lord, soon be over" to light in a positive fashion.

Please take but a moment to sign the petition below.

From: David Lane, ONE.org
Re: Silent Tsunami


It's being called the "Silent Tsunami." In three years, prices for the
basic staples that feed the world—wheat, rice and corn—have risen by a
staggering 83%. For people in the developing world, affording enough
food to eat is becoming a daily struggle for survival.

The New York Times is reporting that in Haiti, people are eating cakes
made of mud mixed with a little sugar and oil to try and beat the
hunger pangs. Without action to stop the upward spiral of food prices,
100 million people around the world will face deeper poverty and
hunger, and hundreds of thousands will confront famine and starvation.

In the face of this suffering, we cannot be silent.

Last week, I asked you to send a message to President Bush and urge
him to make solving this hunger crisis a priority on the G8's
poverty-fighting agenda at its summit this July in Japan. Your
response matched the urgency of the moment, and we smashed through our
initial goal of 30,000 petition signers.

Just yesterday, we learned that Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda has
sent a letter to the other seven leaders of G8 nations adding the
hunger crisis on the agenda for the G8 summit. It's a critical first
step and shows that our concern is being heard. Now we need to hear
from President Bush and work to keep the focus on this ongoing crisis.

Help us reach our new goal of 100,000 ONE members urging President
Bush to rally the G8 to take emergency action against hunger and to
invest in agricultural productivity in the developing world.

By clicking the link below, you'll send the following petition to
President Bush:

http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/o.pl?id=298-1141396-hnv9tb&t=2

President Bush,

The soaring cost of staple foods and the resulting hunger crisis has
caused riots from Haiti to Bangladesh, threatens hundreds of thousands
of people with starvation and could push one hundred million more
people deeper into poverty. Please build on your recent commitment by
taking immediate action to:

1) Prioritize issues of global poverty, including the world hunger
crisis on the agenda of the G8 Summit this July in Japan.

2) At the summit, secure commitments for additional resources for all
types of food assistance and increased agricultural productivity in
developing countries.

Why are we asking the G8—the leaders of the world's eight wealthiest
nations—to take action? We ask because a global crisis demands a
global response, and recent history shows these leaders are in the
best position to take action.

In 2005, ONE members joined millions of people from around the world
in demanding that the G8 make poverty a priority at its meeting in
Gleneagles, Scotland. The results were historic. A year of grassroots
organizing culminated in the Gleneagles Declaration, in which the G8
committed to double development assistance to Africa by 2010.

We can recapture that energy. We've already won a critical victory by
getting rising food prices and their impact on global poverty on to
the summit agenda. We have the momentum and now it's time to turn that
momentum into action to prevent this crisis from turning into a
tragedy. By clicking the link below, you'll add your name to the more
than 68,000 ONE members who have already signed the petition.

http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/o.pl?id=298-1141396-hnv9tb&t=3

The G8 can do so much good and we're holding their feet to the fire.
We're asking them to keep their promise to increase development
assistance to poor countries, double aid to Africa, build better
health systems, fight deadly diseases, and support universal education
and economic growth initiatives in agriculture and infrastructure.

But rising food prices threatens to roll-back progress in all these
areas. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President
Robert Zoellick are sounding the warning that if immediate action
isn't taken, global food shortages could set the world back seven
years in the fight against extreme poverty. The developing world can't
afford to lose that time.

That's why we're taking your petitions directly to the White House
next week. We'll get your message to the President, but you only have
one more week to make your voice heard. Click the link below to add
your name to the petition.

http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/o.pl?id=298-1141396-hnv9tb&t=4

Solving this crisis requires increased resources for all types of food
assistance, as well as a comprehensive plan to boost agricultural
productivity in long-neglected parts of the world. When the leaders of
the G8 sit down to meet this July, they'll represent the resources and
technology needed to do just that. Together, we can show them that we
also have the will.

Thank you,

David Lane, ONE.org




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