Replanting the Great Caldonian Forest by Simon Kewin

In those days, Scots Pines lawned the Highlands
The Mesolithic Marten that ran through the branches
Could see both seas and never leave the touching leaves
Of giant cathedralling trees, shepherding their green,
Endless, restless hush, that rustled with death and life
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With only island peaks visible above the flood
The Cairngorm Archipelago, the Cuillin Ridge Atoll
Until, in that first great clearance of the land,
By axe and ovine tooth, numberless trees fell one by one
Strewn like jackstraws, the devil playing at dominoes
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Not that the mountains noticed the denudation
To them all living things are just fluff and dust
Titanic, elemental, their minds on bigger matters,
They grind each other's gradients, clash with the clouds,
Try to overtower the moon and pierce the sun
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But sitting here on Sgurr an Airgid
It seems a shame all those trees are gone
And time that something was done
So I finish my apple and hurl the core,
Packed with its seeds, onto some fertile ground
And think to myself
That at least it's begun.

Simon Kewin, UK 

Brotecito / Little Seedling by Amelia Modrak

Brotecito

Crece, mi brotecito, crece,

Antes de que cambie el clima,

Antes de que lo hayamos alterado

De una forma irreversible.

Conviértete en fronde joven,

Y luego en bosques frondosos,

Inunda la Tierra de verde

Y absorbe todo el carbón;

Ese carbón tóxico que respiro,

Esa nube caliente, hija del egoísmo,

Ese veneno invisible

Que asesina nuestro destino.

Crece, mi brotecito, crece,

Antes de que cambie el clima,

Antes de que lo hayamos alterado

De una forma irreversible.

***

Little seedling

Grow, my little seedling, grow,

Before the climate changes,

Before we have altered it

In an irreversible way.

Become young foliage,

And then luxuriant woods,

Cover The Earth with green

and absorb all of the carbon;

That toxic carbon I breathe,

That hot cloud, daughter of egotism,

That invisible poison

which assassinates our fate.

Grow, my little seedling, grow,

Before the climate changes,

Before we have altered it

In an irreversible way.

Amelia Modrak, Edinburgh, UK

Japan Washes Ashore in Oregon by Catherine McGuire

I.

Two years later, debris scuttles onto the shingle:

fishing boats, brass bowl, a temple gate,

scrap wood, a window frame, shop sign –

there's no closure to some wounds.

Buried in black and beige sand drifts:

someone's smashed mirror, holding

fractured clouds, broken sky.

II.

Unseen, uninvited, radiation floats

then burrows.  The vast currents

that trawl the sea

leave long, invisible streamers.

The truth leaks more slowly

than cesium, plutonium, tritium.

Data, well buried. Don't connect

neighbor's cancer,

the slowly dying trees, those shriveled,

Cerebrus-headed sunflowers.

Don't think about hungry ghosts

devouring flesh and leaf

in the night.

Catherine McGuire, OR, USA

Letting Go of the Conceit by Holly Day

Imparting tiny grains of colored sand with intricate thoughts

One giant flower covering the ground. It was so beautiful

I wanted take it home with me.

After it was done, he smeared great swaths of color against itself until

It was nothing but white sand.

It should have changed my life. I should have taken it away with me

Let his day disappear in the pursuit of beauty, but just the beauty of the moment.

I fully intended to go home and erase everything I had ever written

With the artist’s apparent satisfaction at the act of creation

Should be enough for me, too. 

Holly Day, Minnesota, USA