National Poetry Writing Month: Day 2

Like I said, April is a hella busy month. I didn't realise that April was also National Poetry Month... so, starting from Day 2, there will be a poem a day on the blog, as well. It's a good thing I'm writing a poetry collection, at the moment. You'll get a month's worth of free extracts (albeit in first draft). Here's the first poem of the month:

A Debt to Terra

Written on April 2, 2018, for the February 8 entry of Another 365 Days of Poetry, this piece is a contemplation on the effects of global warming and how someone from the future might view things as they seek to repair the damage mankind has done to his world. It is set in the same era and universe as the stories from Lunar One.

When the north wind blows, it brings the heat and damp,

the fingers of another clime, tangling our hair

the whispers of another world, the promise rain will come.

It makes us lift our heads to seek the first clouds beneath the sun.

When the wind shifts north-west from here, it brings the heat and dry.

No rain forms in the inner lands, and the wind’s breath feels like fire.

We dread those days, for they remind us we live at nature’s mercy,

and for our negligence of world, the entire planet’s hurting.

When the wind shifts south, it brings a touch of ice, a touch of snow and storming,

reminds us that not all is lost, even though the ocean’s warming,

and like the creatures of the land, to the winds we have to listen,

if we want the ice to cool our world, and beneath the sun to glisten.

The words above are old, from well before my birth,

but they explain what happened to this old world we called Earth,

and why we made it crash and burn, and why its people fought,

and why they fled a planet rent, by destruction, greed and war.

And those words explain to me, why we must return,

now that we can breathe its air, and the world no longer burns,

because, no matter how far we roam, or how many suns we see,

this world will remain our home, and needs apology.

A ‘sorry’ said in deeds, not words, as we come back to make repairs,

and to repopulate it with the species gathered to our care,

for our ancestors took with them the seeds of its rebirth,

and that is our responsibility to this old world we once called Earth.