Poem for PG
We chat with neighbours, connect with friends,
hire tradesmen, purchase from sales people,
indulge in numerous inconsequential conversations
and, usually, think no more about them but,
what if there is profound purpose to our
brief encounters and hidden consequences
result from our random interactions with others?
The butterfly is purported to be a symbol of the soul
so, what if – like a butterfly effect – when we meet,
discuss, converse, share a laugh or hug in empathy,
we salve emotional wounds and, touching cerebrally,
spread or encourage change, endurance, hope?
For those of us whose labour is for hire and don’t
aspire, perhaps this is what we are here for?
Bees
Grass sensuously
undulates in the lazy
wind and all is Utopian.
It is a lovely garden.
A place where flowers
lethargically bob and bow
towards the sun, like spring
loaded children’s toys;
where, flying between
or lightly landing on
blossom burdened fruit trees
– so thick it looks like snow –
an abundance of busy
bees buzz to and fro,
collecting nectar for
their hives but pollinating
stamens too; of strawberries,
onions, apples; enabling
new growth; food,
for me and for you.
Stinging and non-stinging bees,
short and long-tongued bees,
bees with bulbous thoraces
vigorously vibrating the
anthers of plants to encourage
them to relinquish their pollen.
But bees are canaries
in the ecological coal-mine
and the number of once
prolific bees is decreasing,
affected by pesticides and,
stressed, prey to disease,
parasites and pathogens.
If, over successive seasons,
there are insufficient bees
to fly between flowers and
trees and birds and bats are
not plentiful enough to take
up the slack and stamens wilt,
unpollinated, in the summer heat
or, if the bee population perishes,
will there be enough to eat?
Bees beware, the chemicals
don’t care if you survive but
we, humans, need you alive.
Toward Silence
Like an un-watered, shriveled plant,
a battery running down, a waning moon
or the abating swell of waves on an ebbing tide,
I relentlessly move toward silence while life,
in all its variety, garishness, complexity –
like a lengthy Bayeux tapestry – rolls on.
Should I feel cheated or angry about
interfacing with mortality? Missing out on
futurity? It is akin to being on a roller-coaster,
knowing the end of the ride will never
be seen, that someone else will enjoy it.
Whether brief or granted reasonable longevity,
how could anyone fail to laud and extol
the gift, the privilege of sentient existence?
Water
(Written after viewing artist Ralph Kerle’s Impressions of a Turner Landscape)
Shapeless but capable of all shapes,
water wraps the world in a liquid embrace,
shape shifts to vapour or to ice,
creating rain or holding vessels like a vice.
Water emerged from a Hadean world,
when Creation’s breath gently blew
and cooled the surface of the seas
creating ripples, waves, tsunamis.
We are one with water:
mainly fluid, our cellular ancestors
emerged wet onto the land before
growing limbs upon the sand.
As essential to life as air,
water is adaptable, flexible;
finding routes of least resistance
it travels daunting distances to be free
and water symbolizes purity: souls are
ritually shrived from sanctified bowls and,
more prosaically, we wash in water and
luxuriate in baths to sooth sore muscles.
Water sends us messages within its
dark whirlpools and eddies of darkness;
its turbulent corkscrews, tormented
like distressed states of mind.
But is anything actually what it seems?
Like the artist, manipulating what we see,
there is the possibility water crystals
can change shape dynamically
and, if exposed to pleasant music,
positive words or even thoughts, water crystals
will be perfectly formed but, if subjected to
negative energy, are ugly or deformed.
Whether true or false, one thing is certain,
fouling sources of fresh water and treating
the sea as a pigsty will be the final curtain.
Without clean water all life dies.
