love letters to earth

 

as part of a poetry anthology for University of Liverpool School of the Arts 

love letters to earth

scars 

i cried as i stared at the bird with the broken wing 

death is the end of everything 

i cried to my mother 

she will never fly again

the cool of the air as it washes her feathers 

she will never hunt, nor feed from

the banquet of tastes she explores

with her tongue 

she will never bathe in the sunlight at dawn

the warmth cocooning her nest as she rests

in the feeling of life and flight and - 

she won't

my mother smiled

but the marks on her beak

the rough of her belly

the break in her wing 

scars 

tell the story of a soul

who has ventured 

earth

conquered it, lived it, loved it

and her body will return to it

feeding new life 

buried in the soil of a thousand stories 

all beginning from an end 

gratitude 

i'm grateful 

for the birds i hear waking at dawn

whispering sleep well to the owls 

for the rhythm they've formed 

of rising of resting of

silence and sound

the everlasting cycles 

our planet has found 

i'm grateful

for jupiter wears her storm like a scar

a reminder that chaos can exist

in the calm 

and our moon wears craters 

like wounds on skin

a blemish to show

where humans have been 

i'm grateful 

for the golden knots of sand 

can feel rough but so soft

like the callous of your hands 

i graze

just enough

to gaze up at the stars resting in the blue 

the constellations of my freckles

i name 

after you 

a strange playground 

a beaming ball of sun

shines over a river's sandy bay

where daisies in a crow's nest grow

only a revolution away

tender grass, once green and ripe

rising from the roots 

as seeds fly by in meadow air 

but smog clouds rising shoots 

bushes bloom no longer 

as gases fog the skies 

blight in lungs breeds stronger 

oceans drown in drought's delight

plastic clutters waves and

winter winds are warm

the blue zone is wearing black to bury

earth's decaying form

dandelions just dissolve 

when they touch the toxic field 

when electric wires turn static 

amidst the human shield 

of signal, cells and data 

a smoky haze surrounds

from chimney pipes and acid rot 

now pollution's strange playground

now politician's strange playground