Poetry and Ecology

W.S. Merwin, the poet and youngest son of a Protestant pastor,

born in New York, left for Hawaii to replant an old and abandoned

fruit plantation to make it viable for plant life. He sanitized the land,

planted rare species of palms, tropical plants, ferns, and flowers.

The land began to breathe and started flourishing with trees,

fruits, and insects. I think that Merwin's successful attempt

in saving an unhealthy piece of land which he purchased with his

family inheritance is a symbolic attempt to bring life to a dead

land that began to thrive after he planted it. Today, it became

The Merwin Conservancy in Hawaii. He continued writing

poetry while living there about Nature, life, and his personal

commitment to Nature and ecology. The etymology of ecology

reminds us of the most basic and elemental concerns

of our daily lives. Ecology literally means "the study of our home"

reminding us that we can only take action for the world and

the earth by first doing so in our own homes. To take action

globally we must first begin to act locally at home.