“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongues.”   (John Muir)

“He lives most life who breathes most air.”  (Elizabeth Browning)

“Plans to protect air, water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.”  (Stewart Udall)

What are your thoughts about air?  What does air look like to you?  Does air have different meanings?  Express your thoughts in a poem, a visual or a story.

Books:

•  The Wisdom of the Elements – M.MacArthur
• The Astrological Elements – S.Cragin
• How Artists See the Elements – C. Carroll
• Deconstructing the Elements – P. Draper
• The Elements – C. Childs
• Ancient Pact, Vol. 1:  The Elements of Air – F.Younger/C.Colgan
• Elements of Air – A.McLennan
• Air – B. Henry
• Poems About Air – A. Peters
• Air – A. Frisch
• A Guide to the Elements – A. Stwertka
• Air Elements – G. Woolfitt
• The Elements – P. Ball
• Fundamentals of Air Pollution – P.Parker
• Thin Air – R.B.Parker
• The Air We Breathe – A. Barrett
• Dead Air – M. Kennedy
• How to Grow Fresh Air – B.N.C. Wolverton

Poetry:

Air has no Residence, no Neighbor by Emily Dickinson

Air has no Residence, no Neighbor,
No Ear, no Door,
No Apprehension of Another
Oh, Happy Air!

Ethereal Guest at e’en an Outcast’s Pillow –
Essential Host, in Life’s faint, wailing Inn,
Later than Light thy Consciousness accost me
Till it depart, persuading Mine –

The Winds Message by Andrew Barton Paterson

There came a whisper down the Bland between the dawn and dark,
Above the tossing of the pines, above the river’s flow;
It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart iron-bark;
It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below;
It brought a breath of mountain air from off the hills of pine,
A scent of eucalyptus trees in honey-laden bloom;
And drifting, drifting far away along the Southern line
It caught from leaf and grass and fern a subtle strange perfume.

It reached the toiling city folk, but few there were that heard–
The rattle of their busy life had choked the whisper down;
And some but caught a fresh-blown breeze with scent of pine that stirred
A thought of blue hills far away beyond the smoky town;
And others heard the whisper pass, but could not understand
The magic of the breeze’s breath that set their hearts aglow,
Nor how the roving wind could bring across the Overland
A sound of voices silent now and songs of long ago.

But some that heard the whisper clear were filled with vague unrest;
The breeze had brought its message home, they could not fixed abide;
Their fancies wandered all the day towards the blue hills’ breast,
Towards the sunny slopes that lie along the riverside,
The mighty rolling western plains are very fair to see,
Where waving to the passing breeze the silver myalls stand,
But fairer are the giant hills, all rugged though they be,
From which the two great rivers rise that run along the Bland.

Oh! rocky range and rugged spur and river running clear,
That swings around the sudden bends with swirl of snow-white foam,
Though we, your sons are far away, we sometimes seem to hear
The message that the breezes bring to call the wanderers home.
The mountain peaks are white with snow that feeds a thousand rills,
Along the rive banks the maize grows tall on virgin land,
And we shall live to see once more those sunny southern hills,
And strike once more the bridle track that leads along the Bland.