Here at The Chic Ecologist, I like to highlight all types of businesses, products, arts and artists, but it’s rare to find an environmental poet! Here are three selections from Robert Lopez, an electrical engineer major focusing on sustainable energy at Cornell University. His full bio can be found at the bottom of the post. Enjoy!
Untitled
Might we view nature
not just in the depth of a mountain,
not just in the rich canyon colors,
not just in the solitude of the scape,but in the roots beneath out toes,
but in the decay of our bones,
but in all that lives and does not.Might we view nature.
Lightswitch!
[ad name=”Go-JP Rectangle”]This glowing bulb burns,
igniting in a wasteful wash.
Ebbing, flowing.
Flip – off
Cooling, contracting,
A living Tungsten
screaming, panting
in pain.Flip – On
slaughter, stinging
hot vapor, hot stupor.
“Victory!”Flip
“Glory! Glory!”
Flip
A battlefield. A battlefield
at my fingertips,
instant warfare, instant energy,
instant bliss.Flip
“Elegant Faraday! Do no miss! Do not Miss!
Thrust into the lonely Heart of Darkness
for my lovely Heart of Bliss”
Flip
Untitled Haiku
Should the Trees whisper
and embrace us in warm light,
We would grow Silent.
Robert Lopez is a 19 year old from South Texas, currently a junior undergrad electrical engineer at Cornell University focusing on sustainable energy. He’s spent the summer working at the Environmental Defense Fund for his first (and very much enjoyable) internship experience.
He first became aware of our climate-energy problem during his sophomore year in high school while taking an environmental studies course. Since then he has directed his education towards sustainability and has recently become passionate about the social justice aspects of energy distribution. Poetry is a way for Rob to act on that passion and take a break from the numbers and equations ever-present in his engineering classes. Rob hopes that one day his poetry can become more than a hobby and turn into an art which spurs discussions about social injustices and will inspire a few other minds.