Earth Speaks: An Oratorio
by Joanie HF Zosike
1. Recitativo—Earth
“Our last chance to tackle the climate catastrophe.”
Ugh.
“How to heal the earth.”
Argh.
“Our fight for the planet.”
Grrrr.
Expressions like these curdle my molten lava.
They make me want to smash my surface with a mallet!
Instead of wreaking havoc, I sing:
2. Chorus of Fig Trees and Farmers
She fell in love with her
landlord Sam, a generous man.
They were agrarian lovers
who worked on the land.
Fig tree gave the woman
a root and branch of itself.
She dropped seeds in the ground.
Her patch of earth grew to sky.
It grew fiercer, too.
how its green fig eye spread
greater than a mountain.
Woman held her head high.
Fig twitched its leaves and
shook-shaukelt-secoué
Shekere shekere IH! IH!
Ritual dance pounded Earth.
Well! Earth is in no mood
for bucolic solutions.
She doesn’t approve of naïve
resolutions. She needs more.
Earth seeks a new directive.
She’s maintaining her orbit
but must gain cooperation from
those who have injured her.
3. Duet: Earth and Human
EARTH: What makes you think you can save me?
HUMAN: I was born from the dust of your dust.
I will prove that in me you can trust.
EARTH: What gives you this terrible power?
HUMAN: I’m your owner, your tamer, your plougher.
EARTH: You’ve never owned me and you never will.
HUMAN: What if I take you to dinner, pay the bill?
EARTH: All right, enough with the rhyming!
We have to get down to the real nitty-gritty.
You keep talking about a fight for “the planet.”
Meaning me. Must it always be a fight?
HUMAN: That’s right, I can’t abandon you after I’ve done you such harm.
And I swear, I did so out of innocence.
I never meant to hurt you.
I just didn’t know.
EARTH: So you’re saying you were ignorant?
HUMAN: Just like Eve fell prey to the snake’s manipulation,
I fell under the spell of my own self-adulation.
EARTH: There you go, rhyming again. The editor specifically said…
HUMAN: Sorry, I have to reread the guidelines.
What I mean to say is, I owe you a good old-fashioned healing.
EARTH: Get your grimy hands off me, infant.
You think the only way to accomplish anything is by force.
I’ve lost patience with your battle cries and wars!
HUMAN: Don’t go all semantic on me, Ma.
EARTH: It’s not just wrong words, you think wrong thoughts.
Perhaps you should ask ME what I need.
HUMAN: Okay, what do you need?
4. Earth Aria
EARTH: Sprinkle me gently.
Don’t grizzle my grit so that soil drains down the hillsides
You are so sloppy, child, throwing your trash this way and that.
You’ve burned away the ozone so you can’t go out without a hat.
You’ve charred the forests and mountainsides, disgraced every place
you’ve trod across the land in your mania to leave your mark.
You’ve suckled the blood from my rivers, my streams.
Cast your plastics, spit my oil into the ocean’s crust
Put a flag on the moon! Good grief!
I ask you now to press your face into mine.
Sing to me ancient songs. Place your ear to the ground,
hear the whispers from the bedchambers of my bowels.
I’m built like a brick house, organic and mineral.
Trees are my bones, don’t break them.
We’re made of the same stuff—I’m just a little more round.
5. Glorious Hallelujah!
HUMAN: And bigger.
EARTH: And don’t you forget it!
HUMAN: Are you saying I’m star stuff, too?
EARTH: More than you know.
HUMAN: Is my human body—
EARTH: The same as my celestial body.
HUMAN: I’ve always dreamt that I could talk with you, Mother Earth.
EARTH: I’ve dreamed about that too, honey.
Yearned for the chance to make myself clear to you.
Too bad I had to shout to get your attention.
HUMAN: You are kind of scary these days.
EARTH: I’ve always been scary. But I’m always benign.
HUMAN: Can I learn to think like a celestial body?
EARTH: Perhaps. If you really try.
HUMAN: I must fly away to distance stars to save the human race!
EARTH: What, to terraform and make the same mistakes all over again?
You’re just not a one-trial learner, are you?
HUMAN: I guess not. But how do I learn to fix—tackle—heal—fight—
I’m confused.
EARTH: No kidding.
Follow your instincts, child, that’s all.
Learn from the seasons and tides.
They are my children, too. They’ll be looking out for you.
There’s no need for apprehension.
Did I forget to mention, we can stage an intervention together.
BOTH: Glorious, glorious Hallelujah!
CHORUS: Glorious, glorious HEAVE-HO!
EARTH: I don’t want you to leave so try not to heave
and I urge you to think when you hoe!
TUTTI: Glorious, glorious Hallelujah!
Arboreous glorious Hallelujah!
Victorious synergy, Hallelujah!
Green is the color of love!
PAINTING: Spring by Harmonia Rosales (2018).
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The first thing I thought about when I saw the subject for this Silver Birch series was:
“What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn and
Tied her with fences and dragged her down.”
—The Doors, “When the Music’s Over”
I thought back to my solo theatre work written in the early 90s, All Right, So I AM the Earth! and realized this theme has been with me a long time. Then I remembered that with others of my generation, I screamed as if wounded about an imminent catastrophe since the late 60s. Flash forward to 2022. The catastrophe is here. The repercussions of war and injury done to the ecosystem are intrinsically related. It will take imagination, vision, resistance, and strategies we have yet to imagine to overcome what our careless treatment of life on earth and in the oceans has wrought. We are all responsible to a degree, so the best thing we as individuals can do is: educate ourselves, reduce our carbon footprint, and don’t forget how to dance, sing, and love. And, if all else fails, write an oratorio.
PHOTO: Joanie Fritz Zosike in All Right, So I AM the Earth!, solo theatre work written, composed, and performed by JHFZ, directed by Stephanie JT Russell, photo by Jeanne Liotta.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanie HF Zosike is the 2019 Writer’s Hotel Sara Patton poetry stipend recipient. Her upcoming work includes Jambu Press’s Light on the Walls of Life, an anthology dedicated to Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Her chapbooks are Character Poems (Chez Chez) and Bliss, Not Weight, (Ides Anthology of Chapbooks, Silver Birch Press). Her poetry has been featured in a ranged of publications, including Alien Buddha, Home Planet News, Levure Literraire, Maintenant, Syndic, and The New Guard: Boom! “Compassion,” a short story, appeared in Have a NYC 3 (Three Rooms Press). Joanie received an Albee fellowship for her play Inside produced at American Actors Theatre, a NYSCA regrant for 12 Steps to Murder produced at The New Theater, and Foundation for Jewish Culture grant for And Then the Heavens Closed, produced at The Jewish Museum (all in NYC).
Silver Birch Press 