Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 annually, and in recent history its celebration has expanded to consider all of April “Earth Month.” For someone like me who has been an environmental activist since childhood, who studied biology, wildlife ecology, human-animal interactions and other human dimensions of natural systems, and who has spent nearly a quarter of a century as a sustainability professional, this is pretty much a holy day. The outdoors have always been my chapel, and the interconnection of all things is perhaps my most fundamental truth.

April also happens to be National Poetry Month—in fact, 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of this particular celebration. I’ve written poetry since I was a child, and it is just about as special to me as knowing that the fate of Earth is our fate too.

So, what better way to mark both special occasions than to share with you some of my favorite poems related to environmentalism that celebrate our beautiful planet? Rather than reproduce these poems in this post, I’ll list links and brief descriptions.

Home

I’ll start with one of my own poems, Home, which I published on Medium in 2020, along with an explanation of the inspiration for the poem. The poem was written in 1998. In the Medium article, I share how I dreamt of being an astronaut for a while, and how during my undergraduate years, I was fortunate enough to be part of the Space Life Sciences Training Program in 1995. That involved working and studying at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). That was an exhausting but magical summer! I ended up working with the ecologists who performed research on Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge within the confines of KSC. My experiences there taught me two things—that I could be an astronaut, and that I couldn’t turn my back on Earth. I had been interested in both space and biology for most of my life at that point (I was still just 20 years old during my summer at KSC, not turning 21 until the fall). When these two loves came together, I found that my true calling wasn’t the inky black of space but to stay here on Earth, to try to protect what I could and convince other humans that they were a part of nature, not apart from it. With the recent adventures of the crew of Artemis II, the sentiments of Home feel even more appropriate this Earth Day.

We Have a Beautiful Mother

Back in 2013, the remarkable Alice Walker shared an audio recording of her lovely poem, We Have a Beautiful Mother, on her website. The poem is accompanied by music from a CD called Praises For the World, by Jennifer Berezan. Listen at https://alicewalkersgarden.com/2013/05/audio-recording-of-my-poem-we-have-a-beautiful-mother/. I love this imagery of Mother Earth. Her blue body is indeed everything we know.

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, and I could have chosen many of her works to share with you on Earth Day, since her work is characterized by a sense of awe and love for the natural world. Wild Geese has always spoken to me deeply. It tells the reader that you don’t have to be perfect, only yourself, and it conveys the idea that we humans share experiences with each other and the rest of nature. It asserts that if you open yourself to the rest of nature, then no matter how down or lonely you may feel, you can find kinship, comfort, and belonging in nature. I know I have always found that to be true! Mary died in 2019, but she was interviewed as part of the On Being Project in 2015. This YouTube video is an audio recording of Mary herself reading Wild Geese: https://youtu.be/T_nKg3TBzpU?si=cIKM_pu-7CfEHePJ.

The Peace of Wild Things

Similar to Wild Geese, Wendell Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things expresses the idea that a troubled human heart or mind can commune with the rest of nature and find solace. I found a recording of Berry reading this poem on the On Being Project website. Visit https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-peace-of-wild-things/ to listen.

Share your favorite poems and what you did for Earth Day

Do you have favorite poems inspired by nature and/or environmentalism? Have you done something special today to celebrate Earth Day? Leave a comment to tell me about either or both.

Learn more

To learn more about Earth Day, visit https://www.earthday.org/. For a thorough history of the celebration, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day.

To learn more about poetry and poets, visit https://poets.org/. You can search their site for information on specific poets or poems related to certain occasions, themes, or forms. They also offer a “poem a day” series that you can sign up to receive in your email inbox.