Protest Poem
do we have soft, faces of gold
and hearts warm in our chest
I’m seeking comfort
from the tyranny
of denial
As the smoke and ash blanket
Sydney
we are told not to be alarmed
as our collective asthmatic lungs fill with
liquid black inky tears
from my mothers generation
that fought so hard to have
kindness to our Earth
shown in all our myriad of ways
but now
as we choke
the system says ‘this is not happening’
‘it’s not what you think’
calm down
I will not sit by and stitch my heart
to leaders who do not have vision
we need industry change
investment change
policy change
and leadership
we need a complete rethink of how
we all participate in our economy
citizens must divest
how can we all survive
in an environment that is only partially understood
we now know trees communicate
what are the secrets of an indigenous life
that Nature is as alive as you and me
She weeps when she is cut
the trees know when you have selfish intentions
they will not honor you with oxygen if you forget
to water them
this world we live in is a web, everything
communicates with everything else
you will feel this in her forests
as shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing
it is in the science now
I think, what will become of my home?
How long do I have left?
I’m sure as the ash pours into
our rivers, beaches and drinking water,
we will or must consider our climate catastrophe
as if our home was on fire
because it is.
hope is seen in the new economy, where a circular model of
creation will help with the old linear-type model,
that dumps, rubbishes or burns
at its end stage of every built-in obsolescence design
and manufacture.
That craziness has to end.
Industry that pollutes to sell us junk we don’t need, including
cheap clothes that have one season to be sold,
are buried or burnt.
We don’t need this.
Water that is free and precious is bottled
and sold for huge profits,
while people of places like Flint, see no justice.
Who said we could take everything
She has given us for free?
and mine till our heart’s content,
raping our Earth until
every mineral is taken, used and spat out.
We have not long
and yet our faces seem to say on the TV,
“business as usual”.
squabbling about who said what to who
as the lungs of the Earth are burnt
in Bornio and the Amazon
not even forested ….. just…..burnt.
who said you could kill so many activists?
What were they saying?
that our land is being destroyed for palm oil
and we have not been consulted,
so many generations
and we have not been consulted.
© 2019 Bee Williamson