The World Is Burning, But ...

 

The world is burning, but

in a day or two the fires will be out.

They’re being water-bombed right now.

The houses and paddocks 

and the poor, trapped stock

will all be destroyed. But the fire

will be out. Only the blackened earth

will map its dimensions 

for a while. 

Some will leave and some

will stay to rebuild. The same 

as they do when it’s water wrecking

home, livelihood, landscape – when 

the big floods thunder, battering our walls, 

drowning whole towns, obliterating the land.

Turn up the aircon, these days

when Summers get longer, hotter.

They’ll figure out something before …

The world is burning, but

it’s over there in Europe, it’s

over there in the Middle East. Not here.

Turn off the news! Don’t watch!

All that maiming and starving, I know

you can’t bear, and the cities of bombed rubble.

It’s over there, it’s all over there.

It’s all over, there … The world is burning, but

go to sleep; there is nothing you can do. 

Written for Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #218.

Ripping the Blindfold Off

 

I finally realise

(I can be very slow) –

of course they are killing the children!

It’s a genocide (we all know that) 

so of course they are ending

the next generation

before it starts. 

Before it gets a grip.

They are bombing the hospitals,

destroying maternity wards –

the new babies, the mothers 

about to give birth.

I thought they were – blindly – creating

a new generation of terrorists (war

begets war). But no,

not so blind after all. 

They are busy eradicating

the whole future 

of a whole people.

Contemplating this,

seeing more clearly

than I ever allowed myself:

I too have lost my breath.

Words have not been enough.

Decades of words, 

a century of words

failed to save the earth 

from effects of human greed.

How can I hope that words

might prevent the slaughter of children?
But words are all I have …

I contemplate changing 'they' to 'we'. Have we not been complicit?

Note:

In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. 

Bittersweet October

Because we have turn-about sun and rain

in a world where weather has gone mad

tumbling over each other too quickly,

the abundant growth of Spring exaggerated,

everything flourishing faster than ever

richly adorning the whole landscape, 

surrounding us wherever we look 

with burgeoning leaves and flowers,

every hot day and every wet one

enticing our senses, even as

the swift changes set us reeling …

Our reactions too are rapidly

changing – one day we think,

This is Summer, ahead of time,

only to wake to a sudden return,

bewildering in its rapidity, to Winter.

Even as we rejoice, we begin to expect,

reliably unreliable, constant overturning.

October in the Southern Hemisphere is officially in the middle of Spring.

Written for Magaly's prompt for Friday Writings #148: Bittersweet October, at Poets and Storytellers United.

Holidaying with Roses

 














Holidaying with Roses

Soft roses
bloomed everywhere
in tiny gardens
every December
when I visited,
filling those little yards
with a froth of colour.

Until this last time.
Already the edges
of the roses everywhere
were singed black
from the fierce heat,
and all the blooms
were visibly smaller.

I used to walk
with my camera,
storing hundreds
of exquisite roses
in every colour,
full or budding
or newly open.

How glad I’ll be
of all those photos
in years to come,
if every summer
is full of fire,
and the roses stop
struggling to be.

Only – you can’t
smell their perfume
in a photo.
Still, by that time,
I expect I too
may have given up
struggling to be.

Meantime, what hurts
is the thought
of a gradual fading,
year by year
bushes getting spindly
flowers shrinking
retreating.

And I, gradually
losing breath,
no extra to spare
for sniffing roses
or even walking, but
anyway there’ll be so few
roses.

Shared with Writers' Pantry #10 at Poets and Storytellers United