M is for Memories

Requiem for Earth
(a sonnet)

Down the slanting pathway of all the years
No memory now of battles lost or won
There were soft rains that fell, or maybe tears
That burned away beneath the blazing sun.

There was a view of earthrise on the moon,
That tender living ball of shining blue
That stirred the hearts of they who all too soon
Would act from need or greed, their poisons spew.

Now down the slanting pathway of the years,
Degree by small degree, all hope has flown
From rare rich planet, bright among the stars
No longer in the thrall of greed or fears.
Now, here where once a bright blue planet shone
is torrid Venus or an airless Mars.

Phyllis (Granny Smith) Sterling Smith October 2011

The Future of the Planet

Earth is too beautiful to let it die.

THE FUTURE OF THE PLANET

Today is the teeter-totter on which our actions determine what the future of our planet will be. We can tip it either way. What we can’t do is wait. There is a chance that we have already waited too long before acting, and that we are beyond the tipping point, the point of no return.

This prompt inspired the following as yet unpolished, untitled, inverted, Italianate sonnet. At least I think that’s what it is.

As glaciers and the polar ice-caps shrink,
that which radiated to the sky
is trapped by smog-spawned blankets holding heat.
And still our SUVs and Hummers drink
their Falstaff-portioned quaffs of gas. We buy
tales that without more sales we face defeat.

Coal-fired power-plants belch deadly gasses,
contaminate the earth - as carbons fly
and poisons rain on skin and leaf and grasses
and scorching droughts turn fields to desert-dry.

Yet all the while our hope is shining high
above us: Sol, our star, our answer, Sun.
Its flames can turn our turbines. Will earth die?
Not if humans are wise and act as one.

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Husband Otto works 16 hours a day on trying to save the world. If you would like to see about his inventions to make more efficient motors to reduce our energy load, go to his website.

As to harnessing the sun, he has proposed building solar-turbine power plants in such places as the Gran Desierto of northern Mexico, the Yuma desert of Arizona, the Sahara and Gobi deserts.

The power plants, of his improved design, would be the conventional steam turbines now used, with the schematic below showing a more economical design than any current solar plant. Low-cost parabolic trough concentrators would boil water. The wet steam would then be dried and superheated by the focused solar light of tracking heliostats.

This would significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels. It would be a first step toward slowing the accelerating pace of global warming before it reaches the point of no return.

parabolic troughs for single axis tracking
at Mahalia, India

These are small contributions in the total scheme of things. Everyone must do his or her part if we are to save our beautiful planet.