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
>

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
>

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
>

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 

The Black Button by Richard King Perkins II

It could become

part of a teddy bear or snowman

but it’s held the portion of my coat

nearest my heart together for three years

and there’s no reason

for major alterations at this time.

In the still darkness of morning,

I stand in front of her

as she sews the button back in place.

She grimaces when she sees

that the thread she thought

was black is instead brown.

She worries that the contrasting

blossom of thread will spoil

the polished elegance of my coat.

I kiss the top of her head

and remind her it’s not

the color of the string that matters,

it’s only the attachment that counts.
.
.

Richard King Perkins II, IL, USA

haiku by J D Nelson

the computer hums —
the black moth on the ceiling
has been there for hours


J D Nelson, Colorado, USA

The Corner by Holly Day

the beetle in the
web clicks soft
in time to the spinning of its
body in the long arms of the spider
that has made its home in
the dark corner of
my office. it clicks
so regular I turn off my computer, my
desk clock to make sure it's
really him

the clicks speed up
when the spider
reaches out
with one long, pale
leg to spin
the trapped insect
another turn, they slow down
fade to near
silence whenever
the spider
pulls away


Holly Day, Minnesota, USA

Ladybird, Ladybird by Alison Lock

I stop the sh sh across my page

to watch a squirrel nuzzle the ground

all auburn fuzz,  nose down

re- checking the co-ordinates

on a mental map for a nut called X

the shrubs wear their prettiest bonnets

of permed seed heads, legs

black stockinged from stalking

the late summer rains

the lawn has had its last trim of the year

concentric, whorled

shaved into an Italianate maze.

A four spotted ladybird comes to my sill

I lend her my pen for a bridge

I am curious

now there are six spots

two on the edge of her shell

as if about to fall off, and they do

with a shiver, she splits

into a pair of dash away wings

taking her back to her home.

I carry on with the sh sh across my page.


Alison Lock, UK

This poem is from Alison's collection  'A Slither of Air', published by Indigo Dreams Publishing

Samara by Joseph Harker

Where did we

learn about gravity?

The playground--

but not from

Newton's apocryphal apple

plummeting to earth.

Our source was

September maple

gone slow gold,

the sunlight

preening the paper wings of

its whirligig seeds.

And since then,

the verb to fall is

less fearsome.

We learned it

as slow rotation; we don't

believe in impact.


Joseph Harker, USA

Space Station Blues by Les Merton

in an interplanetary space station

with bustling pedestrian zones

he sits on his own in a buzz bar

drinking a glass of cloud nine nectar

it is an orange sky day

with smile impregnated air

he doesn’t respond

to the feel good waves

he’s thinks he is the loneliest man

in the universe and he’s feeling down

wondering will he ever hear

a language he can understand again

Les Merton, Cornwall, UK