Dear Tomorrow

so, dear tomorrow,

can’t you see how earth
prepares herself for that inevitable end?

I worry about you –
what will you be when there’s no one left
to measure time?

****

A cherita for earthweal, the place for poetry on the climate crisis. So many parts of the world are already reeling under the impact. Sherry talks of the atmospheric river systems lining up in Canada, while here in the south of India, the North-East monsoon season seems to have gone completely, devastatingly mad. Go to Earthweal.com to read/ learn/ contribute. 

As if

as if

this world could have
dreamt up love

without the exquisite pathos
of that full moon
alone, again, in a star-filled sky

****
a cherita for earthweal

Earthweal

Today I remember a poetry form called earthhello, that I learnt from Rosemary Nissen-Wade. You can read the many beautiful poems she wrote in that form on her blog. And here’s the link to the one time I made a rough attempt.

But talking of the earth and all that’s happening to it, if you’ve been keeping a keen eye on climate change and all the aspects of the ecological crises, equality, justice and wanton growth that go with it, if you’ve followed COP-26 with interest or amazement, if you’ve looked around you and felt the fingerprints of human excess – in the weather, in the soil, in the disappearance of little creatures, if all of this is translating into urgent, necessary poetry, then consider looking up Earthweal and sharing your thoughts there with other like-minded poets. Brendan, Sherry and others are doing such a great job to keep the focus on what really is the most important conversation we all need to have at this time. So please do take a look, share your work and join the discussion!!

ask her, ask her
the earth already knows
how this story ends

Our skies are empty

More often now, the hollowed out
husk of the afternoon light is overlaid
with images of impending dystopia:
an earth that will not forget, a culling
that will not be kind, an aftermath
that will frighten its oracle. How long
does it take for a glacier to turn to
grass, for a forest to return to dust, for
life to exhaust all possibilities? Already
our skies are empty, our gods have
moved, telling stories of the ghosts
of the sixth extinction. The universe
shakes its head in amused disbelief.

 

For earthweal.com – be sure to visit and share your #climateemergency poetry.

This year is already singed

Not even a week old, this year already questions
my blood, my loyalty, the bastard smell of my

poems. Like a feral cat, this year is licking itself on
my porch, asking if I will steal a saucer of milk from

the neighbour whose pet parrot it has just
devoured. Whose fault is the asymmetry of clouds,

of puddles, of rage, when the rain keeps coming
down in neat vertical lines? I ask you if the last

monsoon was any different. But this year is already
wet, see how some months are drowning. The

inferno is discerning only in the depths of hell.
When hellfire reigns on earth, all skin burns the same,

all tongues taste the same, all cries are oblations
poured on the same pyre. I ask you if the last

world was any different. This year is already singed,
see how life is charred and curling at one end.

 

For earthweal.com – be sure to visit and share your #climateemergency poetry.

Once more around the sun

once more around the sun
this earth that marks neither
beginning nor end —

while, we, crossing an
artificial border of time,
raise fists and voices —

to save the earth from
us, to save us from
ourselves —

strange, this word, movement
its only option, returning to
where it began —

this word without time, without
place, this word without choices, this
world without choices: revolution —

a fist that wraps a fist,
a voice that echoes a voice: revolution,
once more around the sun —

 

For the year that ended, for the year that has begun, for revolutions that have ended, for revolutions that have just begun. And for Earth Weal – Brendan’s brand new portal for “The poetry of a changing earth”. Be sure to check it out and participate. Have a wonderful new year, poets and readers. May the new year bring a lot more poetry to our lives.