How to remain positive about humanity's ability to solve a profusion of looming environmental problems? Huck Fox talks about a faith that we can care for and learn about the environment without losing it.

Chard deNiord recites his poems, "Tree of Wisdom" and "Behold, The Lord God Bird," talks with Zachary Sussman about enlightenment, and recounts the strange, sad tale of a bird beyond imagination.

Tree of Wisdom
I am taken in by its stand and breadth,
marveling at its brawn and reach of branches,
studying each leaf like the page of a sacred book,
embracing its trunk like a void.
I hear the prophecy of a lark in the density
of foliage: "The vision awaits its time;
hastens to the end." Until this time arrives,
I am content to sit and stare and climb.
I am compelled to bet my life on the fact
that this is the first work of revelation,
calling a tree tree, leaves leaves.
It is the good work of a scientist.
It is the hidden work of a common man.
I say its name like the bird who can't stop singing,
Ten Thousand Things In One, and then this prayer,
Om mani padme hum. The jewel is in the world.
I lie in the shade of its canopy
and listen to the genius above deny her name.
I turn its green to...

Mark Halperin recites his poems "No Two Snowflakes are the Same" and "Quail in December," talks with Zachary Sussman about the mystery of human identity, and questions our faith in knowledge.

No Two Snowflakes Are the Same
How could anyone have checked, or is this
something else to accept on faith, like enough is enough
or what's good for big business
is good for the country and each time I love
you is said it's different? How do you tell
Africans, for whom it's usual

to substitute egret feathers in
translations: no two plumes are a match, and why
does that sound that less dubious? Once you begin
asking there's the icy cold, the six-sided-
symmetry--too much that's unique to trust
induction. Here the rare returns like dust

you can't brush off and yearnings that go on
to become those persistent selves we resume
each morning as if by magic. The power of reason,
like past and future, could be a myth, and Hume,
be right: cause is no more than an habitual
association. Like doubt, but less ...

Floyd Skloot recites his poems "Digging Zak's Grave" and "Bittersweet Nightshade," talks with Zachary Sussman about channeling Robert Frost, and describes how overcoming brain injury affected his writing and gave rise to a new appreciation of the natural world.

Digging Zak's Grave
These hands crusted with dark
red soil have reached back
seven million years in a stroke
of spade. They also touch
yesterdays fallen leaves,
the mulch of a dozen years
of fruits and vegetables,
and this afternoon's loss.
Time means nothing we can
grasp till it is converted
to memory. Now, drenched
in sweat, I am stained by
what remains of Columbia River
lavas that covered this hill
in Miocene times. If rain
and snow can do such slow
work on rock, they will have no
trouble with the body I am
about to consign to this hole.