I’ve been taking part in Rebecca Stonehill’s Climate, Nature & Life Writing course. I’m already really inspired and have several writing threads on the go. Here are a few pieces I feel are ready to share, even if they’re not finished.
Ocypus Olens
(This one was from an invitation to explore a species you might discover on a walk, whose name you didn’t know).
Today, a Devil‘s Coach Horse crossed my path.
I halted, aware of my feet and
its rapid legs dashing for the cover of grass.
It was matt black all over.
It saw me and stopped as I did.
It reared its back end high up and round,
faking a scorpion, and its pincer jaws yawned.
I sensed the looming shade of my fungal
red umbrella and gently pleated it down,
squatted like a child in the rain.
Zooming in to grab pics, I learned its name,
Ocypus, for fast feet and Olens for
the stink pumps on its underbelly, ready to shoot.
Before I knew its names I knew its fear,
masked as threat, a vicious tiny predator
frozen by my gallumphing.
Speaking the pain of a place
(This one was from a series of prompts to think of a place for which you feel grief. I feel a close connection to India, and particularly the Ganges)
The Ganges is an old and holy spring of life
And such rich ways of life spiralled from it
A Milky Way on Earth as it flows in heaven
Rippling in slow exchanges over continents
But Holy Cow the udder of Gangotri is failing
White churns to brown and crashes like oceans
The monsoon wanders through the seasons
Land cracks like Dhumavati’s deathly skin
This melt is epic now like Manu’s fish foretold
Hanuman cannot refreeze these mountains
Demons fly in private chariots signing off
dams and poisonings from their vimana
From here, I am a kind of god with my
seeing devices but aching with impotence
Does it help to tell stories that explain why?
Or just touch between my eyes with water?
Acrostic cross-stitch
(This one was inspired by the Lost Words book by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris. The invitation was to write an acrostic poem about a wild species. I thought of cross-stitch as it sounds like acrostic, and I was feeling cross about the impact of climate change on wild species, changing the nature that we want to see as our refuge and comfort. Maybe I will cross-stitch an acrostic poem someday, probably of Ivy.)
A corn of Thor’s tree of life
Cap tight to your long face
Old oak in the making
Robustly growing
Never failing
Fronds furling out
Every spring
Rain on your leaves
Names the forest
Ink-green shape-shifting leaves
Vines spiked with open-air roots
Your pollen-bobbled firework flowers
call in the bees
Heaven-angled
Earth-rooted
Reflected with sky
Observing the dark
Numinous watcher
Muntjac by the A47
(This one was a prompt to write from the perspective of another animal.)
The juvenile muntjac shares his point of view on the A47 dual carriageway scheme, which promises to ease congestion, bring economic growth and slightly shorter bus journey times.
We want the smell over there
The tellings of our close ones
Over the grey terror-line
The never-ending death-bringer
Lift our hearing for a quiet to cross
It’s a rumble whoosh over and over
Brother leaps out blind deaf
Chancing push racing hard
Shiny box rushes and sudden
Blam squeal and dear brother is
Flung high and blood spray
And he is there flat and soul-gone
Just I shiver as is big cold alone
Find the sleep nest where the
Tree-fur falling has made soft
My close ones’ smell still there
Moon has grown hard-bright
So little trees left to darken sleep
Giant rumble box all sun-coloured
Came to cut slam blam trees gone
Humen in sun-striped outings
Pink orange eye-hurt colours
They do break take the wood-dark
Fern secret mushroom home
I want brother spring up again
Want mum smell sister smell
In the rot soft beetle nest and
Want the wide dark home we had
Day sun comes and I tremble
I want I want I want
Go back to the terror line
Open my ears for danger
MAGA
(This one didn’t come from a prompt but from a discussion about writing with tight constraints. I decided to write some lines with the straitjacket on thought and life that is being imposed on the USA. Yes, it’s bad writing but it’s a tough constraint, making a point.)
Militarised America Goes Against
Most Ancient Good Agreements.
Masses Are Growing Angry (at)
MAGACult Axing & Gutting Aid.
Memory Abnormal, Grudge Absorbed
Master Admonishes Generals, Announcing
Massive Astounding Glory, APPLAUD!
Miller Arranging Grave Attacks,
More About Grandstanding (than) Action.
Marching Armoured Guards Against
Mums And Girls, Assaulting,
Mauling Anyone Gathered, Awake.
Manipulated Armies Grab Arrivers,
Migrants, Antifascists, Greens, Artists;
Making Attacked Governors Aghast.
Multimillionaires* Appease & Grovel Amid
Market-crashing Anarchy, Glad (to) Aquire
More, Acting Green, Actually
Melting Arctic Glaciers Abruptly,
Moving (by) Airplane, Gadding About.
Murdering Animal Games Amuse.
More Affluence (by) Gas Abstraction.
Meta Artifices Generosity & Art,
Masking Authentic Grace & Awareness.
Musk Assisted Grump’s Ascent,
Milking Angst, Glorifying Austerity.
Mocking, Ableising, Gilded Airheads,
Mates Abetting Greed & Ambition.
Maybe Americans Get Active.
Make America’s Government Aboveboard.
Maybe Amid Global Agony
Murica Adapts, Grows (into) AbyaYala.
(*PS, Multimillionaires would be Billionaires if I could use B)
GLACIER (Glacier, Glacier…)
(The prompt for this was to focus on one land-related word, and to repeat it over and over, until you realise that the word is a symbol not the real phenomenon it represents. For this, I was thinking about how turning the land into sets of ideas and commodities has led to the damage and depletion of the land in reality.)
