I’d be willing to drive an extra ten minutes to shop
At a grocery store unplugged from the grid,
Its lights and heating provided by solar panels,
Though I admit that an extra thirty minutes
Might prove a problem. I have my own life to live,
After all, which requires keeping the friendships
That matter to me in good repair
While saving an hour or two, now and then,
For writing to the editor of my local paper
A temperate letter on the injury done the earth
By an extra degree of global warming,
Making the obvious point that bears repeating
Without the indignation that offends more readers
Than it persuades. Still I don’t want to deny
That the few willing to drive the whole half hour
May also have a list of priorities
That it costs them dearly to put on hold.
What for me is an optional extra
Is for them a commandment they must obey.
The world would be smaller and shabbier
Without its saints, without the zealots
Who can’t be content with half-way measures.
I hope I never dismiss as melodramatic the few
Who chain themselves to the fence of a power plant
Where the turbines are turned by burning coal.
I hope I never mock as inconsistent the few
Who, having sold their cars to promote clean air,
Hitch a ride with a friend to attend a protest.
The moderate many in Biblical times
Who didn’t give all they had to the poor
And follow their footloose prophet when invited to
Didn’t look down their noses at those who did.
They admired them for thirsting after perfection,
As I admire those who are thirsting now.
Of course, I don’t agree with the zealots who argue
No fellowship can exist between friends of the earth
And those who believe a better world awaits us
Beyond the earth. We can make them our allies,
I argue, if we dwell on their faith that one day
In seven should be set aside to commemorate
The earth’s creation, that the commandment to rest
Applies to beasts of burden as well as to humans.
And maybe I’ll tell the zealots an anecdote
That shows how I owe my arriving on time
At a meeting in Pittsburgh on the dangers of fracking
To the ministry of the New Light Tabernacle,
How when I stopped in the rain on a lonely byroad
To fix a flat with a jack I discovered missing,
The only car that pulled in behind mine
Displayed on its bumper, in radiant letters,
The two-word announcement, “Born Again.”
Did I tell the driver, when he offered to help,
That I thought one birth was enough for anyone?
No, I accepted his offer gladly, and gladly listened,
While he changed my tire, to the story of his conversion:
How one Sunday morning, already drunk,
Worried he’d glimpsed a squad car in his rear-view mirror,
He swerved into the crowded lot of a church
And scooted inside, only to find himself
Listening to a sermon that asked the question,
Are you living the life you want to live?
No he wasn’t, and the rest is history.
So he explained while bolting my spare on,
Cheerful, though soaked to the skin, impervious.
And who was I, as I watched him, to doubt
That he’d not only tried to change but had succeeded,
That the new man was not the old?