How nice of you Earth, My Dear Mother in that you fall around our star at a distance so we don't burn or freeze. It allows liquid water, vapor and ice to be. It's the Goldilocks zone that gave life a home. "We've tried others but awe ...  this planet is just right!"
How nice of you Mother Earth in that you float an ozone blanket in the sky. It blocks the ultra violet rays that can damage DNA & kill cellular life. 
How nice of you Mother Earth that you turn about your axis. It causes your molten belly to spin and creates the magnetic field that deflects dangerous cosmic rays. Without this shield life couldn't have flourished and the lands would be barren.
How nice of you Mother Earth that your hot core also gives you geological life. It causes your plates to move, the earth to quake and volcanoes to flare. How terrible you think! Do we need a shaky world? If it weren't so, there couldn't be any land-based complex-life and we wouldn't be. 

How nice of you Earth, My Dear Mother that we can behold your awesome charms. We're stunned by the color of the sky when the great fire goes below and bewildered as the night stars wink a cosmic hello. Only to see the grandeur of a new morn that lights up the sky.
How nice of you Mother Earth that from your perch we see the moon's light. Your large satellite silently moves like a great torch and it keeps your wobbles low. Without your partner's embrace your axis would teeter.  At one time there could be tropics at the poles & ice sheets at the center. At another, the climates would shift. Our planet could not have given creatures a stable home. It's unlikely we would be.
How nice of you Mother Earth that you also speak to the sun and put bows of colors in the sky. Awe, you're a clever lady. An artist without compare!
How nice of you Mother Earth that when the sun has a prance you make light dance. Your auroras swiftly flash wavy sheets of colored reams. They're here; no there, they're gone, no here! It takes my breath away and causes me to gulp refreshing air. 

How nice of you Earth, My Dear Mother to be the home I love. A place so full of life: plants & animals, some big and others tiny, and people of many brands.
Now nice of you Mother Earth to make snow, hail, and sleet that whitens the lands. You also send the rain that awakens seeds to break soil. It becomes food for creatures, like me and thee.
How nice of you Mother Earth to give us medicines we use to treat the sick. They quiver as they whirl so doctors unwittingly follow a geomancer's scheme. To cure is to use a remedy that will realign their twirl. To spin as smoothly as you, is the dream.
How nice of you Mother Earth to provide us with trees and stones. These become materials we use in our homes. We pump black crude from your belly that keeps us warm and moves our machines. The gold, copper and diamonds also came up in ancient magma flows. We dig the iron and coal we use to temper steel so we can even scrape the sky. Now some live and work so high they watch white pillows floating by. 

How nice of you Earth, My Dear Mother to have mixed the recipe that lives. In the long lost past ingredients came floating by. Comets, asteroids & meteoroids pierced your breath; as you were kissed thousands of times, cosmic sparks filled the skies. As molecules swirled and lightning flashed, it caused a dash. The buzz came alive undersea, and in time some forgotten waves beached it upon the shores.
How nice of you Mother Earth to be sturdy where I stand, yet the continents still drift upon thick bubbling stew. The land masses slowly move at the rate our finger nails grow. As you shake, spew and absorb ... you stir the cauldrons that brew fate. A mount of buried fossils attests that when one scene ends another begins; but how many can you make?
How nice of you Mother Earth in that you endured so many mass extinctions, at least five. Each one cleared the way for a new burst of life. Had the dinosaurs not been swept aside, large land birds and later giant mammals could not have become the new lords. It made a route for hominines to come about, including later ones like we. Even if it was all a random crap shoot, how much luck could there be? The serendipity is remarkable! It’s as if ATI* loaded the dice that slowly paved our way.
How nice of you Mother Earth that you've given up the secret of your fate. Even after Homo sapiens are petrified and added to the tinder you're destined to become a cinder, absorbed in a swollen red sun. Long before your last dawn our descendants must fly off in search of another berth. They'll be lucky to stumble upon another jewel like you, our very precious Earth!

*ATI means “All That Is”
Ken Koskinen a.k.a. “The Naked Psalmist”
June 6, 2009