The Trees
Image
Reply
Tag Archives: climate change
Scared of the new summer
It makes pleasurable sense to live in the country
but I am apprehensive about what it means
when the blistering sun and a searing north wind
are set to scorch the earth when they rise again
I am scared of the new summer on days like these
marked for worsening catastrophes
where shimmering heat on the horizon it seems
prefaces the burning of landscapes by fire destined
to scour every countryside rise and glen
I feel the new summer fear rise again
I am scared of the new summer as you should be
when severe climate change dictates choice and activity
Greta
What can you say our young assertive one
with the voice of an innocent and every reason to come
to the land of the people with the frozen tongues
did you hear the voices trapped in the throats of the speakers
the truthsayers the protesters the dumb and the seekers
what will you say my naive one
as a voice for the reticent who want to save their home
where no voices are heard and no listening is done
did you crack the blank shields of the riot police abashing
when your truth and your statements of the obvious were clashing
with the public dialogue of denial that’s in fashion
what do you now see my prescient soul
a world that is scared yet loudly condemning your role
contradiction abounds around what’s believed and is told
but you won’t close your mind your mouth or be controlled
because the need is the need of a world being sold
where ascendant rejections of science’s findings
carry weight disproportionate to tomorrow’s unwinding
and the hope that was youth falls to systemic undermining
I hope that you stand up to the relentless grinding
for across the world there are still people who need you
to attack all the arguments of denial so feeble
they still rise to smother the planet in chaos and evil
but for your pluck and your courage your ability to needle
it does provide a check with words that are real
and challenges others to rise too and reveal
the lies and deception the denialists conceal
I hope and I wish you can change how they feel
what will you say next our young assertive one
If you didn't pick it up the rhythm is sort of set to Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
Rain
It is so hot I can barely stand it
they say this is the future come early
I can’t stand the idea of the future coming early
how is that possible?
surely the future has to come when it is due and not before
in its own good time if you will
but the future has come early and I am so fucking hot I feel like I am cooking
I feel like everything I touch is either a hot plate or cooking on one
I feel like the sweat I am dripping is not sweat it is boiling water
and I want to scold the future for coming early because I don’t know what that means but here it is in the present and there is no relief from it
I want to get a big soaking brush and watercolour the sun from the sky
I want to replace it with pile upon pile of towering thick grey cumulonimbus
heavy with precipitation weighty blackening the sky and ready to dump
I just want it to rain
big fat wet drops that land with a splat and each single drop soaks everything it hits
rain so thick if you try to run away from it you just get wetter and wetter
it simply hits you harder and reaches deeper into your soul
I so want to run in that rain
all I think about is getting away from this fiery dry heat by getting all soaking wet
cooling until I shiver to my core with cold relief
to a place where I can confront the profound desolation this false future brings
the rain will put the future back in its place
take its toll on this deceitful future of scorching isolation divergent from its proper path
giving me a new wet future where I can cool off for a while
where I can relax and think about other things
I would lap up the true future
the moist green rain dominated future
it’s not like I don’t want any heat
it should just be intermittent again, when and where it is meant to be
I want us to all have a right future properly in its place
making it easy to breathe without fire in your lungs
wet enough to have us splashing wildly outside free from fear
rejoicing in the joy of life and secure in what is to come
I want everyone to dance with me in the rain
shake off this febrile oppression
and share my love in the rain
Witness
We witness their leaving like smoke in the wind
the wildlife departure impossible to rescind
following First Nations people out of the bush
into memory alone at an increasing rush
when we came here there were many koalas just 16 years ago
now their sighting is uncommon as they falter and go
and the freshwater crays I haven’t seen for five years
the metal blue of their backs absent - extinction fears
there once was a blackfish but it also is gone
from the spring creek below us it once called home
and the robins are fewer where they once dominated
the platypus just hanging on from being eradicated
I’m sure the list is much longer but what more can one do
than try to protect what is left sheltered in a zoo
more people and cars, disease, cats, foxes, more stock
more land cleared, less native food, climate change, ticking clock
we should know better but our efforts are weak
we talk local but the world must now deliver what we seek
Poetry days #30.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
Spin
I never stopped the world
the world it never stopped me
until the day I forgot to pay
homage to nature’s way
the time I wrecked the world
was the time the world wrecked me
my influence and consequence
heated it by degrees
oh it kept spinning assuredly
you might claim there was no problem
but on the surface I
directed its death and then some
I am man,
I said I can.
What am I bid?
So, I did
Poetry days #18.
All work is my own and subject to copyright. I do not use AI. I do not want AI to use my work.
something in the water
immersed in water
luxuriously suspended in space
cut off from the entire breathing human race
reflecting on water
so much to consider
when water as commodity goes to the highest bidder
tumbling in water
battered by an abused life giving sea
will i survive this wave crunching of me?
drinking any water
found on a scorching day
too many of these are making the earth pay
freezing in water
a break in the ice
i pull myself up, but just fall in twice
drawing down water
bought for the farm
having to buy water represents harm
a well full of water
a sense of security
an empty well brings fear to my family
river bed water
evaporates into the air
when will i see it again? i can’t up there
everywhere water
after drought comes flooding rain
our homes went under last year, then again and again
methane in the water
turn the tap and it burns
fracking structural layers causes geological churn
water suspension
plastic on every scale
next on the weather agenda - plastic hail
toxic water
neutralises fishing skills
no good fisherman can live on massive fish kills
ocean water
systems anchor for the world
danger warning flags ignored although they’ve been unfurled
wars over water
beginning and the end
is your water consuming neighbour enemy or friend?
drowning in water issues
battling exhaustion
this marks the end of my allocated portion
My first attempt at responding to David’s W3 where PoW Sylvia Cognac’s prompt is “water”
Brittle
Brittle branch breaks under weight of bird landing
Falls to ground
Alarmed bird flutters to new bough
Insects break down branch
All is right with the world
Butterfly lands on native flower head
Tongue extends for life giving nectar
Butterfly moves on
Flower is pollenated
All may be right with the world
Mountain Water flows over rock
Down toward the sea
Sediment forms floodplain soil
Landscapes bloom with new life
All was right with the world
Forests, grasslands, wetlands and ocean life
Breathe for and cleanse earth and sky
Working together
part of a whole
All is not right with the world
Broken branch is tidied up by gardener
Native flower is replaced by agricultural product
Mountain water is harvested for commercial gain
Land and ocean are raided
Diversity is diminished
Brittle the world breaks
Falling birds
All those birds falling from the sky Some birds live More birds die So consider Why oh why? We poison food chains and nature deny We pave We divert We scrape the sky We take too much don’t comply heat the planet watch it dry Then only crocodile tears do we cry As our legacy becomes the worlds biggest lie That we care action says we deny
The Last Butterfly
When the last butterfly flutters by your seat on the grass When the sun moves overhead in one more timeless pass When the creek’s empty water flows by and on When the creatures of the bush all around you have gone Will you sit and reflect on what could have been When you knew it was coming it had been foreseen Will you ask why you didn’t when there was time and you could While you sat on the grass thinking I must then I should
The Smoke Filled Sky (a lament for my country)
Testament to our past misdeeds
Confirmation of future trends
For victims, my heart bleeds
No politics justify these ends
The smoke filled sky blocks light and hope
Destruction and death follow
How will our burning country cope?
What hope is there for tomorrow?
Immediate danger on fire grounds
A fire season now six months long
Environmental disaster all around
We need more than just “stay strong!”
Adopt the fire advice “watch and act”
For this escalating climate emergency
Because if a nation ablaze isn’t enough fact
Our destiny is to burn again too blind to see
This is not a plateau
Skeleton School by Madelaine Last
This new normal is not a plateau
This new normal is not the new normal bro
The simple fact is temperatures continue to rise
The simple fact is there are no alibis
Even when an individual climate change denies
Even when the fatalists are saying their good byes
Even though so many choose to walk on by
We can do our best and the naysayer defy
Because there are indicators that clearly show
There may still be time to protect our home
Despite the hothouse building in our greenhouse dome
2016 was the world’s hottest year
because El Niño added to the sear
Many politicians made this their bluff
On behalf of lobbyists saying it’s one off
Then 2017 was almost just as hot
The third warmest year and El Niño not
How is the first half of 2018 I hear you ask?
How much reflected heat was there in which we basked?
It was the fourth warmest on the global tab
Again, no El Niño to be factored in the lab
Accelerating temperatures throughout the Industrial Age
Say greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change
Measures have been gauged stats have been paged
So many ordinary people are supremely enraged
Four straight years of temperature highs
Unseasonal fires, landslides, quickening dries
Ice caps melting at an ever-increasing pace
Ocean currents stalling changing weather’s ancient face
Sea temp differentials flatten there are water level highs
Since 1993 7.7 centimetres of seawater rise
And we’re still not ready damn our eyes
There is not one government that does enough
Where conservatives dominate, we are really stuffed
When we need collective accomplishment on the world stage
All they manage is the underachievement needed to end our age
When 17 of our hottest years since records were begun
Have been experienced by the planet since 2001
Fish are relocating due to warming waters
Resource wars are driving people across borders
Animals are struggling where small changes matter
Wildfire behaviour sees normal patterns scatter
Hard dry ground where crops should have been
Leave starving masses suffering sight unseen
In Sweden and El Salvador wheat and corn harvests dip
Four continents of heatwaves rock the state of the ship
Intense and longer storms, Flo’s protracted flooding rains
Deeper waters and drier droughts put more people in their graves
Nuclear plant shutdowns because river cooling water is too warm
Does any government or corporate body set off an alarm?
No, because they say we’re in the same safe boat
Despite some countries suffering in ways others do not
In Delhi people lie on the ground when record heat stops work after noon
Where there’s no techno cooling to ease every hotter summer’s swoon
Elsewhere electricity supply crashes due to air con demand
Dozens of heat related deaths occurred last summer in Japan
Basic system failures threaten water supply and food
Yet, all some do is argue, wring hands and do no good
2017 saw a carbon dioxide max for 800,000 years
But from Paris the US withdraws citing fake news fears
And the rich haven’t paid to help poor countries cope
As they promised in the accord to give some glimmer of hope
Global warming now moves faster than any models say
Are there global changes can be made to keep the worst at bay?
Like science harnessing knowledge to produce drought resistant crops
Or international government that can call on climate cops
Enforcing global policy solutions, a climate government pronounces
Or predicting global heat and rainfall for informed responses
We’re not talking about the risk to our grandchildren anymore
It’s the risk to today’s planet knocking at our door
Unless we lift ourselves from our decision-making funk
We’ll reduce the value of our world to the corporate status “junk”
Meanwhile, some people and Governments are acting somewhere out there
Funding research and renewables, reducing waste, doing their share
Protesters are demonstrating and actioning their care
Planting, recycling, whiting roofs, championing what is fair
But they can’t take on the weight of the world it’s just too much to bear
Will you help them, will you and you take on the dare?
poetography.ink 