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‘R’ You Saving The World?

globe of the Earth with a supportive hand underneath it
Some of us R trying:
Recyclers, re-users and repairers;
riders of bicycles and rev-ers of electric cars;
reducers of emissions with bio-mass boilers,
roof solar panels, and residents who use them,
really sustainable developers,
       with rainfall harvesters and run-off tanks;
regular givers and those who limit usage of finite resources;
radical learners who know what’s safe, not toxic nor wasteful;
radiant fashionistas in natural fabrics, not man-made rayons;
rich beauties who never use micro-beads in ‘products’;
radgie gadgies who put their newspapers into the blue sulo;
ruddy faced growers of organics who reject chemicals;
reflective designers of biodegradables who create wrappings
    and rubbish that rots rapidly;
religious genetic engineers who’ve worked out the ethics;
researchers who grow food with hydroponics;
readable writers who explain global warming,
    so oRdinaRy people understand;
realistic politicians (The Green Party)
    who plan for the planet not just for now;
revolutionary citizens who vote ecologically,
resourceful pupils in gardening clubs, growing radishes and runners,
retired folk, volunteers in conservation projects, who make compost;
Rwandan game-keepers who care for rhino,
Russian zoo-keepers who breed endangered raptors,
rustic bird lovers who refill seed feeders regularly,
retailers who refuse to sell plastic,
people who use renewables over and over again,
and I refill a reusable glass bottle to rehydrate.

Sue Foster



Photo by Greg Rosenke via Unsplash

Currently Popular Poems:

Lost Moments

Lost Moments And searching souls Wasted time Looking for justice. Enters the courtroom A shudder of silence. Reflected sadness And searching souls A blanket covering Masking identities. Seeking survival of ideas and opportunities. Jenny

Cardamine Pratensis

after Laurie Lee, ‘Milkmaid’ ‘Tender cress and cuckoo-flower: And curly-haired, fair-headed maids, Sweet was the sound of their singing’* A pretty name, the ‘cuckoo flower’, just one of many guises: ‘Our Lady’s smock’, or ‘fairy flowers’ that come in varied sizes. The flower, they said, could bring bad luck so rarely picked for remedies; but sometimes risked to use like cress to pepper up the lunchtime cheese. The ‘May flower’ tells us when it blooms while ‘coco plants’ confuse the mind, the rustic ‘milkmaid’ seems to show an image that is less refined. The name suggests a dainty wench, just like the flower, a pleasant sight, who tends the herd in shaded barn in frilly smock, all dazzling white. They say the blooming coincides with cuckoo’s call; they may be right but milkmaids conjure up the mood of summer’s idyll at its height. Lee’s marigolds and buttercups and ‘brimming harvest of their day’ reveal to us a bygone time, remind us of those country ways. Julia Duke *From a 15th or 16...

Whispered Words

Whispered words of silence Forgotten energies Of the past. Like a recurring dream Restless thoughts Of the now. Spirited voices of the present Elated energies Of the future.   Sally  

Lace-like Shadows

Dancing with lace-like shadows of forgotten worlds, the tortoiseshell creeps slowly, the last energies to lie upon the rough bark. With folded wings, Madame butterfly is no more til Spring. Charlotte

Leper Chapel - Mosaics of Time

Mudstone mosaics and jumbled fractures - an uneven puzzle waiting; holy stone with leper marks, dotted and spotted black. Ever expanding lichen rings with double oil-spotted rainbow; angular rust-like stains Testing the presence of time. Clenched into cracks Of weathered rocks and broken messages; scarlet snapdragons trailing their cardinal stems. Damp buttress of moss clinging, Festooning the flint; ink spots, stone measles, proud thistle commanding the base. Random yet structured, closely inter-twined cobwebs Fastened carefully to parched and pocketed stones. Chaotic yet ordered toad-like grotesque within; marking essences of devoted and hidden faces. Picture flints grinning their caramel coffee smiles amongst Anglian crags, embracing their forgotten cousins. Stephanie To see the inspiration for this poem and hear it being narrated at the remains of the Leper Chapel, Dunwich, visit this page from our Chronicles of Greyfriars project website.

Flickering Predictions

An age of drifting forecasts Tempers stabilising the existence A prequel sensation Accessing the conflicts of mind Offset against time. A random schedule. Broadened beyond an overhang Towards sanity An essence of rotations Of flickering predictions and fathoms and reasoning. Dave

Lockdown

All shut away we weather a storm Seeking projects or hobbies not our norm We are kept away from all we love Not a kiss or cuddle visit or hug. For those departed a once happy place No rhyme or reason age, sex, or race. The economy takes a downturn All business closed money we can’t earn. We all look to a brighter time as we reflect Remember to complete things we neglect Lucky we are to have visual means As we stay in touch talking our dreams. Things we will do when danger is over A trip to the beach or lay in fields of clover. A visit to places we said we would A fast pace before no time we could. Make a change to our old style of living Grateful to life, loss to those that have given. Give to charity help those in need Caring is a reward without greed Those that give without care or thought Heal those who have lost asking for nought. To binmen, shopkeepers to all who continued Give cheers and praise for all they’ve done. Fearing not for their safety but working as one. Our children ke...

Portuguese Seahorse (long-snouted) Living on the Edge

A sea creature, to cradle, adore - escorting its life mate across millennial seascapes. A bobbing coquettishness Swimming awkwardly in Algarvian currents.  Horse-tails like baby-hands reach out for Neptune’s parental comforts,  wrapping around gentle swaying seagrasses. A delicate dance and exchange of your 400 young;  Your once-in-a-life-time long-snouted mate, with ultimate fatherly caresses. The collection of all the Silvery tears can’t compensate for Anthropocene encroachments: An ocean of plasticity, rapacious ripping fishing nets. A screen-based sea of humanity’s unkindness. Snouts snuffling, a scorched earth tribe, A noisy distracted indifference: Your impending homelessness Your offsprings’ melancholic fears. New Gods empty out the seas Ladling in their toxicity and carelessness: A seagrass meadow depletion Your cherished young rendered fatherless.     Mark Ereiraguyer

Lockdown the Green

Plastic screens Covid-19 Keep hands clean Covid-19 Don’t make a scene Covid-19 Lockdown on the green Covid-19 Face masks mean Covid-19 Covid-19 HAS BEEN     by Joe    

Spring Into Action

To return to leaf and brighten the day, Spring suddenly appears with accelerando of snowdrops and May in March. Fluted bird song fills the skies, worm casts aplenty rise to surface and morning dew appears. Paula