It’s that time of year again. Due to literally not having had the time to prep for either this or World Mental Health Day on the 10th (for reasons that will soon be apparent) I’ve had to be a bit sneaky this time around, and I am hitting Social media at the two most busy times for me: 9am and 5pm, with these blogs filling the spaces in between. This is the first poem: The War on Trees.
Here it is for those of you who like your poems not in graphic form:
The War on Trees This summer was a killer behind beauty, lingers terror; I'm not strong enough to survive another. You see nothing, I'm constant, craving for rain, respect, the hands that once celebrated grain now instead are tempted by a wheel, the coin, nothing at all. Our roots are failing, the landscape, burning my name, becomes my fate.
There’s an actual, interesting story for this poem, too: the first two lines occurred to me as I was driving in heavy, rush hour traffic on a dual carriageway and unable to stop. Panicking slightly, I phoned home, knowing nobody was there, before leaving myself an answering machine message. I invented the distance dictation device, and really have to hope that’s not the first time a writer has panicked and done the exact same thing.
This year’s been a significant one for me in terms of environmental work, having plucked up the courage to submit a science-fiction based concept to a major concept. There are echoes of it in the second poem: this one is the constant reminder to myself that we know so little about trees, and we are treating them, as we are all nature at present, with little or no real care. I think many of my favourite spaces are close to being decimated by the changes in climate. I really hope that I am wrong.
If you enjoy this poem, please consider buying me a cuppa on Ko-fi.
The Internet of Words 
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