Listen for kindness in your kin
And kinship in your kind
As earth slowly shuts herself down
At a pace unnoticed
Until whole glaciers disappear
And icebergs melt away.
Only deep beneath the topsoil
Do roots entangle kith
And kin, share touch and messages
As if to show us how
To behave when only kindness
Can cushion the countdown.
How do great male poets say it?
Dredging up ancient ones
From long before: Ice will suffice.
Not with a bang but a
Whimper. Fire next time. Rage, rage—
But no anger remains.
Except passionate young ones who
Resent generations
That might have had foresight and saved,
Nurtured and loved their home. They taunt
Us for seeing God and Earth as
Separate entities.
We are the Trinity, they say,
God and earth and we
Together. And that has always
Been true. Or better, they
Tell us, we are duality.
God and earth is we.
That’s the unity. But can we
Sit still and learn beneath
The calm mourning and keening like
Tinnitus left over
From the most recent pandemic
That raged world round all year.
That’s what rages—disease and those
Who root in hate—while you
And I listen for kindness in
Our kin, and kinship in
Our kind, as earth slowly quietly
without fanfare, shuts down.
Oh, wow, what impact this poem has! I love how the last stanza exhoes the first, and feel foreboding in the message. Hatred and clamour everywhere, as the icebergs silently melt. I was writing somewhere else about how frustrating it is to have been aware of all this for 40 years - had we begun changing then we would be in a good place right now. But we are still fighting the same battles over the last friges of old growth, the last imperiled ecosystems left. Frustrating indeed. It is hard to see how we can turn this around in time. But we live in hope. Fabulous writing, Susan.
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