"Tragic Error"

"The earth is the Lord's, we gabbed,
and the fullness thereof-
while we looted and pillaged, claiming indemnity:
the fullness thereof
given over to us, to our use-
while we preened ourselves, sure of our power,
wilful or ignorant, through the centuries.

Miswritten, misread, that charge:
subdue was the false, the misplaced word in the story.
Surely we were to have been
earth's mind, mirror, reflective source.
Surely our task
was to have been
to love the earth,
to dress and keep it like Eden's garden.

That would have been our dominion:
to be those cells of earth's body that could
perceive and imagine, could bring the planet
into the haven it is to be known,
(as the eye blesses the hand, perceiving
it form and the work it can do)."

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

see also Earth Gospel: A Guide to Prayer for God's Creation
by Sam Hamilton-Poore pg 44