10 Poems About Mother Earth: Love, Gratitude and Connection

The basil leans toward the glass,
three green questions in a chipped pot.
I water it before the kettle,
then touch the soil
as if checking a small pulse.
Outside, the morning carries on.
Inside, one leaf holds its shape.

After the allotment,
I find the day beneath my thumb:
dark grit,
a thread of root,
the dry shine of a seed.
I wash my hands.
The smallest part stays.

I took the stone from the river path
because it fitted my hand.
Not beautiful—just warm,
flat on one side,
marked by a pale seam.
All afternoon it travelled with me:
on the bus, at the desk, beside the bed.
By evening I understood
that carrying something is not the same
as keeping it.
I returned it before dark.

My father kept his gloves by the back door,
though his hands had grown too stiff to use them.
After rain, I wore them anyway.
They smelled of leather, compost, and him.
The garden had not waited politely.
Mint had crossed the path.
The beans had fallen over their strings.
A snail shone on the wall like a small brass button.
I worked until the beds could be seen again,
then left the weeds in one corner
for whatever needed them.
At dusk, water gathered in the empty gloves.

My sister says the hill is smaller now.
She says this while carrying two peaches
from the farm shop to the car.
I remember it taller—
not because it was,
but because we were twelve,
and every bend in the road
had the authority of a new country.
Below us, the valley keeps its patient details:
a church roof,
three horses,
a silver thread of irrigation.
We stand there without agreeing.
The peaches bruise in the paper bag.
Still, the hill gives us somewhere to look.

My nephew asks what the wind is called.
I tell him the first names that come:
rooftop wind,
sea wind,
the wind that turns the washing inside out.
He rejects them all.
He wants the name of this wind,
the one pressing its blue hand
against the kitchen door.
So we listen.
The loose gate knocks twice.
A plane passes unseen.
The sycamore shows its pale undersides.
He writes one word on the fogged glass,
then wipes it away with his sleeve.

At the museum, the old map hangs behind glass.
Blue channels spread across the county
like handwriting no one now can read.
A guide points out the vanished marsh,
the road built over its shallow edge,
the place where reeds once interrupted
the straight ambition of the fields.
I think of my mother’s stories:
boots filling with brown water,
egrets lifting from the ditch,
a bicycle abandoned beside the bridge.
She never called it a lesson.
She only said the ground had moods.
Outside, traffic moves along the bypass.
Rain begins, fine as dust.
On the pavement, a dark reflection
holds the whole grey sky.

Place it where morning reaches first.
Do not promise it a future.
Use the old mug if the pot is broken.
When the stem bends,
move the chair, not the plant.
When the leaves go pale,
look closely before you name the problem.
Keep water near,
but do not make a ceremony of it.
Some things grow better
without being watched.
If a storm breaks the tallest shoot,
cut nothing until you have slept.
In spring, put your hand beside the stem.
Measure only the warmth.

She counts the tomatoes by weight,
not by beauty.
The split ones go to the front,
where customers can see
what the sun has done.
A boy asks if the carrots are sweet.
She gives him the smallest one.
He bites it, frowns,
and gives it back.
Behind her, crates lean into one another.
Mud dries in the corners.
Her hands smell of fennel,
metal, and the morning field.
At closing, she tips the unsold leaves
onto the pavement for the goats.

The allotment is silver before breakfast.
Every marigold has folded its yellow face.
The shed roof holds a thin, clean silence.
I walk the rows with a basket,
collecting what can still be eaten:
a small pumpkin,
three onions,
a pepper darkened at the stem.
At the far fence, the compost waits,
black and patient beneath its lid.
I lift it and find a beetle moving
through the peelings,
slowly, without apology.
I close the lid.
Then I carry the basket home.