Tuesday 26 March 2013

Whales


I didn't intend this blog to be all poetry - I hope to have a good balance of gardens and dogs as well BUT I have just read a shocking article on the contents of a whale's stomach and it drove me to write this poem. What can we do about the dreadful amount of plastic floating in our oceans? It seems we are hell bent on destroying our planet.


Ambition

As I float in the Caribbean Trash Vortex
caught in the reams of carnage,
thirty carrier bags, two stretches of hosepipe
five flowerpots, a flip flop -
in all fifty nine different
pieces of plastic - lodged in my gut
I dream of breaching out to sea
whacking my vast tail on the surface tension
of the blue ocean
leaping out of the waves and crashing back
scattering spray on the way
which catches and glistens
in the early morning rays of sunlight
under the wide sky.
Being a host to a myriad of smaller
organisms who as devoted followers
nibble and clean and scurry and hurry by my side.

That would be my ambition
as my airways clog with polystyrene beads
like mermaid's tears
and I can no longer move with
my necklace of plastic detritus
tethering me to the sea bed.

a small ambition for one
so very large.



On a more positive note though check out this TED lecture on desertification. It is a fascinating and hopeful insight into how after we've destroyed it - we can mimic- nature.

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html


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