Paul Hawken's commencement address presents a picture of the deterioration that is being wrought by human activity and motivates college graduates to join the invisible, ordinary masses who are already saving the planet with everyday processes. In a call to live and hope for something better, he stresses, in the language of a poet, how nature requires optimism, realism, and a penchant for reconstructing what has been lost as part of one's life legacy. [This commencement address to the Class of 2009 at University of Portland was reprinted by permission of the author.]