Love and intimacy in a time of climate panic. Written by Zena Edwards©
you exhale, a comfortable mist of breath,
your DNA collected kaleidoscopic
in condensation on the bedroom windows
I am the first up with an Autumn day break
it opens a shivering song in my body
the coffee is good and strong
and the news bleats that crops are gone
due to climate change.
coffee is a sensitive plant.
the courtships of the seasons are blurs
of burning ember to steel ice grey
in the shortest of times these days
24 hours seem like an eventful tea break
A brash breeze bristles the tree tops in the garden, a breath born
from a jagged tower block of ice, at the mouth
of its mothering polar ice cap, a cracked molar, dramatically drops
a guiloutined gasp as it tumbled, thundered into the arctic waters
broke its back, and a gale galloped 25,000 miles across oceans
licking up the waters in fury, they smashed and sprawled
their saline cure over costal towns
carried in the mighty arms of hurricanes
named after our favourite family members
and once in a while, we, in bloated bellied cities
on moral high grounds with low thresholds for sobriety from jurassic flesh
once in a while, we lift our faces from the trough of consumerism
see clouds like bears and buffalo clash, gnashing teeth
we see them bite down on each other
bleed chemical rain as they shake their necks free
and we are naively impressed at the welts of lightning
but fail to see the great wounds
our high-rises and ignorance cause as they needle the blotching skies -
as we spend out of sync with the earths budget
till soon, her bile will be our crop
my Weetabix could be poison seed
me and you, we used to take walks in the park
contemplate the balance between
the city bustle and the rustle of grass
underneath our feet. Now, our eyes skimming
the city skyline at the top of Parliament Hill,
seeking the shrinking valuable green spaces
now our weekend love banter is full stats, facts,
and corporate responsibility, big bucks drowning under
Steven Hawkin's prediction of our 100 year mortality - our finality?
I nuzzle in your neck, you pull me close
"Don't worry, Lovelie," you say, and tell me about
you plan to build rafts from our bamboo futon bed base and
sculpt oars from the shed door
to row ourselves to other islands with more security.
“we'll all be refugees then," you said.
Then you take my hand
in answer to a beckoning memory
of one of the hottest summers of our love,
when doodles broke free from behind
the straight lines of your homework paper
to mountain bike, snowboard, hand-glide,
Egyptian camel ride. “I’m gonna do it!” you said,
with just 55p and fluff in your pocket
I had worked in the park kiosk and served you dark coffee
in the polystyrene cup upon which you promptly wrote your number,
told predictable jokes about dog owners looking like their pets, yaddah yaddah...
but it was the crease in one corner of your smiling eyes
distracted me well enough
from the brewing storm for 5 whole years
and it's this morning
this morning with a pomegranate fantail sky, wing-tipped silvery pearl
that the question of 'why procreate?' is on the lips of our minds
decades will pass, will we imagine our own extinction?
Or rehumanize the moment dismembered by the dissonance
You hug me from behind, and I watch your exhalation
Dare to dream the determined DNA of new days, new ways of being.
~Z~