'We lived in places that we never knew. We could not name the birds perched on our sill, Or see the trees we cut down for our view. What we possessed we always chose to kill. 'We claimed the earth but did not hear her claim, And when we died, they laid us on her breast, But she refuses us - until we earn Forgiveness from the lives we dispossessed.'

My blessed California, you are so wise. You render death abstract, efficient, clean. Your afterlife is only real estate, And in his kingdom Death must stay uns…

'Teach us the names of what we have destroyed.'

We are not as we were. Death has been our pentecost.

Common man has at long last got himself so far out of gear with nature and his environment that he is beginning to see the shape of extinction, whether he reco…

I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature's social union.

...man must accept responsibilities in proportion to his power and, if we are to exercise these responsibilities so that all life can continue on earth, they m…