creative writing on environmental justice
So, here we are
at the end.
We have pulled down the sails to make patches for the ocean, come
we will patch those patches with paisley scraps,
with blue and white checks like
Dorothy’s dress, we will save scraps of paper
to cover half-written books; come we will grab
one last plank from the ship to patch
somewhere out past the epilogue. Come,
there is so much farther . . .
The repatriation flight skids off the tabletop runaway,
thundering in the tailwind.
Homing dreams crash through the optical illusion.
Breaking the pandemic shackles,
they gallop toward the gruesome gorge.
Downpour and darkness cannot immure their vigor.
They are incandescent with compassion,
forget their masks.
Excruciating voices.
They hasten . . .
They ask her if this is the end,
Armageddon, Ragnarok—is Jesus
Going to come sort this. Can it get
Worse. Winston Smith knew
Dystopia is not drama but grind,
The constant scrape of fear.
We’ve tried dramatic speeches
(Appalling, sublime); it’s time
To get on with the slow business
Of building, growing from seed,
Rejecting the martyr for the . . .
There will be rooms of people
You’ve never seen before.
And won’t again, strangers,
Brazenly loving music,
Eating dumplings, browsing scarves.
There will be breaths let out,
Unchecked; there will be strange air,
Strange beds, cafe tables
That wobble as you write.
There will be spontaneous outings.
You will linger in the ice cream shop,
Not hurry . . .
as we retreat to our homes (those lucky to have them),
stock up on what we think we’ll need—toilet paper,
hand sanitizer, flour, beans—begin to understand
what it means to hunker down. In public, try out
social distancing: smile, nod, nervous, wonder
is this six feet? when what we want is to embrace
every service person we meet: the efficient,
masked . . .
I didn’t know I could stop and trace the roads
of my palm the way my baby does, and tell
myself that moving fast isn’t everything, that other folks had
walked this path, that Earth isn’t mine alone, that am
not as great as I assumed, that it doesn’t pay
to eat with both hands like crabs, that I’m vulnerable.
I didn’t know I could live without sports and pop
myths, . . .
Where shall we put the bodies, sir,
fifty thousand more today
and that is just at dawn
the cemetery’s gates are chained,
undertaker’s curtains drawn
curtains drawn good man? this will just not do
dig another trench, deep and wide;
but do not upset the people,
dig it out of sight
dig it out of sight dear sir?
the woods beyond the city are full,
there are . . .
Looking at a fluid-filled conical flask,
the reactants colourless,
you’d think nothing of note was happening.
It’s been the same of life in lockdown:
we go nowhere, see no one, touch nothing.
And yet, my son has taken up jogging and cooking,
my daughter, YouTube yoga, art.
My lecturer husband has been finding new ways
to connect with his students. . . .
Collaborators:
Wind, sunshine, water,
clouds, fruit, rocks
Text:
my son asks if I have an idea
of what happens when we die
I tell him I don’t know but yes
I’ve ideas, words, approximations
of concepts outsized by my
grasp—eternal, ephemeral,
what is essential work
in these days when luck
unluck has . . .
You must know Darwin—not any darwin
in forums with telescopes on his eyes
always singing the beard like a puppet,
or one having his tag by accident;
I really mean the God of chance—
he respected me, no, he deified me
not because I once mirrored his incubation
when we sat alone on HMS Beagle,
but that I surpassed him in jest—
this, too, he dismissed when I reviewed . . .