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To know how to grow from an ovum to child,
To fly South when it's cool and North when it's mild,
To grow seed that are borne in the food they will need,
To heal wounds in all flesh, no matter its creed.
The insect to larva and moth it will grow,
Runs fleet the antelope, yet the snail survives slow,
The spruce tree antifreeze makes in its saps,
But birch drops its leaves, then takes long winter naps
Cloud forests transpire and make their own rain,
While prairies delight on their rainshadow plain,
The Kite shapes its bill so it fits in the snail,
And Eagles let Ospreys catch them their lunch pail.
And while some relish polar caps, others savannahs,
The insect world's smarts make us all go bananas,
Six thousand mile roots each rye grass does grow,
Exceedingly well the good Earth each must know.
And when chewed upon, plants make themselves taste quite bitter,
While birds change their songs, dodging death with a twitter,
Each one knows its niche, be they short, fat or tall,
And wasteland to us, is wildlife's shopping mall.
Wildlife doesn't read maps, this fact is well known,
Yet pets return thousands of miles to their home,
And some birds fly pole to pole twice yearly,
Mapping rays, stars, geography and magnetic lines clearly.
While the trees tell each other a blight's on its way,
We live our work ethic, but Nature does play,
At this game we call life, and it has a great time,
While its senses prevent ecological crime.
All this and lots more, Nature's boggling facts,
Incomprehensibly justand intelligent acts,
Confound those who only see cause and effect,
While forgetting how orchestras play so perfect.
Michael J. Cohen "A Field Guide to Connecting with
Nature." Eugene,
OR: World Peace University, 1989. Used with permission.
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