A word to while away the time

Race, race through the stormy night;

The crow arches its back

And sings –

The moon yawns at the quiet sight.

Two creatures they run,

Milky light upon hands warm

With heat the ocean brings –

Dance in the grass with great delight.

But where are you going, on this fine night? Does the grass curl or unfurl at your feet? Struggle on the through the scathing peat; in a warming world you must tread light.

The eyes of the children

They open wide to acknowledge

The heavy colours –

Did you see more then?

Breathe in sharp, breathe in deep;

The crow will not sing

Nor steal your gold –

But the tiger in the forest, will forever weep.

Have you seen the road, that which we dig? Do you know how to lead? Run, run, do not stop to breathe, for in the balmy night breaks the heave, the heave of the sickly oil rig.

Ask a question, ask three or four;

Challenge the script written in the stitches

Woven across too tight –

The material cannot take the strain any more.

The vasty ocean has so many corners, but too many hands to hold; eventually what thinks you, to an escape true? What. Be. May? Thinks. You. Do?

Communicate.

Can I?

Against the tide we have watched our fellow people reclaim the land of the past; a lady’s stomach swells with the population and fishermen cling to their masts as the tide turns. It is the time of itingaaro, the dawn twilight and the rooster calls out to wake up, wake up! Because the tide is turning. An unwelcome intruder and children shiver in case it murders the gentle innocent herder without shoes. Weathered feet born to walk the earth? Are they those that earn the right to be able to feel its soil? Take the culture, it can be replaced and when you are not looking we will build a wall, a wall made of earth to keep you out. And still the lady’s stomach swells; the tide is as full and taut as her skin, and it stretches to the horizon.

The clouds darken over the lagoon and the tide cuts through like dark glass, the axis of our lives, and it lacerates the land, flushes salt in to our cuts; the call is sharp, sharp as knives. The heat is on, and we walk in the thick of it, playing with the dials but our hats we don, a uniform response in case we fall in to the pit. Who are the defeated people? Not I, who writes but only watches; a walker without shoes, perhaps. Sand bags placed on a sandy beach will not stop the tide.

The white-walled economy washes over the island, the saltiest tide of all and a tie washes up on the shore. Sure.

The ocean doesn’t breathe.

And we scour the Earth.