'Tipping point - the moment at which damage to the environment is so severe and widespread that it pushes the ecosystem into an irreversible cycle of self-destruction.'
Hurtling towards the tipping point
Fields of ancient trees
Disappearing like smoke in a gale
A forest a week -
A river of tears will not bring back what has been lost.
Will not wash the toxins from this poisoned lake.
When will it be too much …
When will it end?
The immaculacy of the world torn asunder
Like innocence taken from a young child
Who cannot stop the man from pushing himself
Into her
Spilling seed where it should not be spilled.
Who are we to mourn what our kind have done –
Love like a blinding sun
Might save me here, now
Warm the coolness of my grieving heart.
But I fear
It is too late
For my world
She dances
Corrupted
An industrialist’s whore
Spiralling towards destruction
Like plumes moving across the Pacific
Hot and black with carbon
Like his breath in her ear
Panting, as rolls off her and asks ‘did you enjoy it?’
Her mouth sealed shut with sellotape
Her hands bound behind her back.
There’s no turning back
The earth is pregnant with malaise
She is birthing a monster –
Fathered by greed.
The baby dropped in the latrine
Lived an hour
Suffocated in shit
Before the rescuers could reach her.
010807
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Grahamstown library
Grahamstown Library
A memory pale
As new skin emerging from
beneath the scar tissue.
Edges into consciousness
In the way that dreams do,
She recalls
the way the wintry trees stood still and
bare, beside the sandstone building
That housed the books.
Immersed in clear light
As she was – in that time,
A matrix of yearning
That has never left her.
The streets of that town, remembered
Haunt her
Like a fragrance she cannot name.
The stairs up to the children’s library
Darker than
Grief.
310308
A memory pale
As new skin emerging from
beneath the scar tissue.
Edges into consciousness
In the way that dreams do,
She recalls
the way the wintry trees stood still and
bare, beside the sandstone building
That housed the books.
Immersed in clear light
As she was – in that time,
A matrix of yearning
That has never left her.
The streets of that town, remembered
Haunt her
Like a fragrance she cannot name.
The stairs up to the children’s library
Darker than
Grief.
310308
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
LuckyBeanNecklace
To write
I wear the scarlet necklace
wrought from seeds
And bold black thread.
I cast aside
His aspersions …
Like an frightened parent
Might scorn a child
Whose truth
Cuts close to the bone
A knife in a hand
Angry enough to spill blood.
I want to be
As brave as the full moon
Just before dawn
Finding the hidden secret things of the garden,
That long to gleam in her light.
lost,
Forgiven,
not forgotten.
250308
I wear the scarlet necklace
wrought from seeds
And bold black thread.
I cast aside
His aspersions …
Like an frightened parent
Might scorn a child
Whose truth
Cuts close to the bone
A knife in a hand
Angry enough to spill blood.
I want to be
As brave as the full moon
Just before dawn
Finding the hidden secret things of the garden,
That long to gleam in her light.
lost,
Forgiven,
not forgotten.
250308
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Pain - Dickinson
Pain – has an Element of Blank –
It cannot recollect
When it begun – or if there were
A time when it was not –
It has no Future – but itself –
Its Infinite contain
Its Past – enlightened to perceive
New Periods – of Pain.
Emily Dickinson
It cannot recollect
When it begun – or if there were
A time when it was not –
It has no Future – but itself –
Its Infinite contain
Its Past – enlightened to perceive
New Periods – of Pain.
Emily Dickinson
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Tree-fan
She is the bareness
Of a winter tree
seen blazing palely
from the road home.
its branches fanning out across the aching blue sky
like small bones.
structuring the intricacy
of a truth.
She is the waves that collide in the Labrador Sea
Sand floor resonating with the water
In a hum that sounds for miles.
Turbulent, unresolved.
The cold Arctic Ocean seethes with life
Deep below the ice.
The strange creatures living there, in the dark -
Do not welcome the new cartography
The submarine-borne scientists would impose like a template
on their primal home.
Like a poem
Pulled from the depths of her
Fights
Being given a name.
200308
Of a winter tree
seen blazing palely
from the road home.
its branches fanning out across the aching blue sky
like small bones.
structuring the intricacy
of a truth.
She is the waves that collide in the Labrador Sea
Sand floor resonating with the water
In a hum that sounds for miles.
Turbulent, unresolved.
The cold Arctic Ocean seethes with life
Deep below the ice.
The strange creatures living there, in the dark -
Do not welcome the new cartography
The submarine-borne scientists would impose like a template
on their primal home.
Like a poem
Pulled from the depths of her
Fights
Being given a name.
200308
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Neighbourhood watch
The small girl
Standing at the door
Watching through the bars of the closed gate
Sees her image, give or take thirty years
Pass along the street.
The woman
Looking up
Catches the tail end of the glance
Feels it rather than sees it –
The clarity of a recognition
She can barely fathom.
The green of the trees
Between them
would swallow her whole.
She clings on to the small nearness
Of a stamen dangling
From its red-belled flower
As if it were a lifeline.
The hard creaminess of the lily curve
Holds the vast space of her awareness
Like a lip, like a cup.
180308
Standing at the door
Watching through the bars of the closed gate
Sees her image, give or take thirty years
Pass along the street.
The woman
Looking up
Catches the tail end of the glance
Feels it rather than sees it –
The clarity of a recognition
She can barely fathom.
The green of the trees
Between them
would swallow her whole.
She clings on to the small nearness
Of a stamen dangling
From its red-belled flower
As if it were a lifeline.
The hard creaminess of the lily curve
Holds the vast space of her awareness
Like a lip, like a cup.
180308
Monday, March 17, 2008
Moths
Moths
The moths
Have migrated into the house
They crowd the walls
Small ciphers dark against the whiteness.
As if witnessing a wake,
Or perhaps waiting for a dream to float in
From the garden they have left behind.
They flutter up
When disturbed
Settle back
Notes on page of music,
Tuning a waiting song.
Yet to be sung.
Her voice
Quavers
As she reads her poem to herself.
She thinks of death -
The low cemetery wall
That does not hide
The plain white crosses marking the graves within.
She wants to see with the eyes of a child
Reach past the fear of failure
And find her truth
Say it,
Clearly.
The words
A balsam
For a wound
That cannot be undone.
170308
The moths
Have migrated into the house
They crowd the walls
Small ciphers dark against the whiteness.
As if witnessing a wake,
Or perhaps waiting for a dream to float in
From the garden they have left behind.
They flutter up
When disturbed
Settle back
Notes on page of music,
Tuning a waiting song.
Yet to be sung.
Her voice
Quavers
As she reads her poem to herself.
She thinks of death -
The low cemetery wall
That does not hide
The plain white crosses marking the graves within.
She wants to see with the eyes of a child
Reach past the fear of failure
And find her truth
Say it,
Clearly.
The words
A balsam
For a wound
That cannot be undone.
170308
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