Opening Lines for Earth Day

Apr 21

Written By LoLC

Wild sparrow egg in nest. Photo by R. Davis.

The Emerson House reopening this year coincides with the 55th anniversary of Earth Day. First observed on April 22, 1970 in response to alarming environmental degradation, Earth Day has evolved into an international event that promotes environmental justice, awareness of climate change caused by global warming, and action to reduce it. Earth Day also celebrates the web of life, and its connections to its essential but inorganic surroundings.

Though we may worship the ground he walked on, Ralph Waldo Emerson was only human; he could not have predicted how the burning of fossil fuels would so adversely affect the planet. But insights and reverence for nature in his writings testify to his prescient view of the whole earth: its living creatures as well as the elements that sustain them—minerals, air, sunlight, water. Take Emerson’s poems: many recognize non-human aspects of nature to be as significant—even as sentient—as the poet’s; some evoke a shared destiny.

Emerson’s paean to “The Humble-Bee” invests the familiar insect with intelligence: “Wiser far than human seer/Yellow-breeched philosopher!” he wrote. In “Berrying,” the blackberry vines sweetly talk back to the poet. In “Woodnotes II” and “Monadnoc,” there are dialogues between a human voice and nature’s. Emerson can deliver a moral with wit: in “Fable,” a mountain argues with a squirrel, who has the last word: “‘If I cannot carry forests on my back/Neither can you crack a nut.’”

One of Emerson’s earliest published poems—and emblematic of all his work—“The Rhodora” exalts the quiet beauty of a New England wildflower. Here the poet addresses the plant directly, as if it were a person, and famously concludes: “The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.”

On Earth Day, or any other day, seek inspiration from Emerson and you may find it.

— R. Davis, Emerson House guide

WORKS CITED OR CONSULTED:

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Collected Poems & Translations. Harold Bloom and Paul Kane, eds. NY: Literary Classics of the United States. Library of America #70. 1994. Print.