Today’s prompts include “a water poem,” “a breezy, conversational poem that includes something that could only be found in a dream,” and “of the Earth.” Did you know that April is also Earth Month? The theme for both Earth Day and Earth Month in 2026 is \u201cOur Power, Our Planet.” This theme is focused on the role of people and communities worldwide in sustaining environmental protections that affect the cost of living, public health, infrastructure reliability, and long-term stability.<\/p>\n
13 Ways To Celebrate Earth Month<\/a> discusses the origins of Earth Month – an extension of Earth Day (April 22) and offers ideas for getting involved and doing something good for the planet we inhabit.<\/p>\n The first poem today, “Future Frittered Away,” combines “a water poem” and “something that could only be found in a dream” – and it is “of the earth.” The title begins with “F.” But it feels too apocalyptic. Evolution leads to devolution, and we are about as permanent as the dinosaurs, but their extinction resulted in the mixed blessing that is us. Ours will likely lead to something. Not better, not worse (for the planet, that is – clearly, it will be worse for us<\/em>) – just different.<\/p>\n The second poem incorporates most of the prompts. It started out as “I Kill Plants,” but in taking the photo that would become this post’s featured image, I realize that they are healthy in spite of me. They need repotting before they take over the kitchen and strangle me in my sleep, though.<\/p>\n We dreamed Big dreams \u2014 Physics. A dry creek bed will be O, Pothos. Do you have a green thumb? Or do you, like me, kill silk plants? Do you have house plants? A garden? I grow pequin peppers (chili peppers seem to get hotter with neglect, so we’re a perfect fit for one another) and my husband grows kale and mint. His garden thrives. Mine holds grudges.<\/p>\n Please – leave a comment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Celebrating Earth Month with a cautionary verse or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2717,2716,2788,2787,2779,2725,2772,2792,2728],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-a2zchallenge","tag-atozchallenge","tag-pad","tag-poem-a-day","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-prompts","tag-poets-northwest","tag-stafford-challenge"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 07:58:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990923"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137991010,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990923\/revisions\/137991010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990923"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Future Frittered Away<\/h2>\n
\nthat we were flying fish
\nunhooked,
\nunfettered,
\nto slip the surly bonds
\nof waves,
\ninaction
\nevading consequence.<\/p>\n
\nlong-limbed giants, striding
\ngrateful
\ncontinents.
\nWithin our grasp we bent
\nthe light,
\nbottled it \u2014
\nsold it as our future.<\/p>\n
\nWe broke the barrier \u2014
\nsilence \u2014
\nwith our noise
\nand built a wall of bars,
\na jail.
\nShortsighted
\nprison for our children.<\/p>\n
\nour grave.<\/p>\nBenign Neglect<\/h2>\n
\nI turn away from you
\nin shame and guilt because
\nI know that you are slowly dying
\nbut I’ve seen you,
\nseemingly immortal, thrive
\non artificial light,
\nbreak-room eau du tap,
\ncheap polystyrene pots,
\nand paper towels.\u00a0 I can’t quite force myself
\nto make you live on rich loamy soil
\nand Miracle Gro.
\nI mean,
\nthe sink’s right there. Help yourself
\nwhen no one’s watching. I see
\nthe purple zebrina
\nsneaking through the slats
\nin search of sunshine.
\nYou could stretch a vine,
\nwrap it round the tap-handle,
\nflood the kitchen. Yet you sit there,
\nstoic, with your silent accusations
\nwhile I neglect the succulents.
\nThey seem to like it, though.
\nI’m not a sadist.
\nHeavy arrowhead droops,
\nsurrenders to the suck,
\nand thrives despite me.<\/p>\nOther National Poetry Month Posts<\/h2>\n
Your Turn!<\/h2>\n