In their time
In their clime
They did
what they could
And it stood
What do we do
In our time
And in our clime?
Will what we do stand?
O fellow poets, have a heart
Be not like Aeschylus
the poet on Greek shores
so distracted and abstracted
he could not see
the lamagayer's missile
aimed at his shining dome
Your poetic heart should be home
singing sweet phrases to scarred clouds
and healing the wounds
from uncaring man's foolhardy actions
Write poetry to make the ocean's heart
heat up and sweat
Make the clouds ravenous
Till they weep upon the earth
and the world becomes a sea of green
This poem is based on my worries abour climate change that we could as a world acting in unison avert but hardly any of the super powers are privy to protocols such as the Kyoto Protocol and so on. Right now in Southern Africa where I live, the whole region is faced with either a debilitating drought or a devastating el nino. These things are no longer speculation.They are for real. It is historical fact that the droughts that led to the loss of millions of people in Ethiopia in the 1970s were man-made.They were the results of severe damage to the ozone layer and that came with its attendant difficulties: not enough heat from the sun reaching our oceans and, therefore, the oceans did not heat up sufficientl for any real evaporation to take place. Result- no rains fell and no crops were grown. Result - famine and crocodile tears!
I am, through these notes and through my now enhanced poem, appealing to all HP poets who feel so inclined to join me and write poems on climate change and related themes. We could in the end publish and even organize symposiums and readings around the world on WORLD POETRY DAY 2016 and beyond till we make a difference. How about that poets?