This poem is a conflict, between two
you’d think should be allies –
two who need to live together
in mutual support, in symbiosis,
in give and take, ebb and flow,
in response, adaptation … in balance.
This poem is a conflict between the two.
This poem is earth silting over,
piling up, drying out, earth
being shovelled, rearranged
by hands and machines,
becoming inhospitable to water.
It is earth discharging its garbage –
being made to discharge its garbage –
to crowd water, to infect water. This poem
is earth in conflict with water.
This poem is water overflowing –
overflowing the sky in enormous rains;
overflowing the seabed which can
no longer contain it, to bash at the shore
and overwhelm the shore; overflowing
the rivers and streams with violent roaring
to crash over fields, against bridges,
through houses, to inundate the earth …
to change the earth, and the lives
of all those who live on the earth.
This poem is water in conflict with earth.
This poems is a conflict of earth and water.
In fact it is many such conflicts. Some
are the vagaries of Nature, or so we’d
like to think. Some of us like to think them
acts of God. But most are caused by the acts
of the human race, which depends
on the integrity of earth and water, the way
they act with each other, react with each other.
This poem is the conflict of earth and water,
very much brought about by the conflict
of humanity with its surroundings, its basis,
its vital support, its only home. This poem is
a conflict, deadly for us who need earth and water.
The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write about two things fighting which seem unlikely to fight. The Poem A Day prompt is to write 'an earth poem' (today being Earth Day).
This is written in the Boomerang Metaphors form invented by Hannah Gosselin.