(Featured image courtesy Wolf Clifton)
She is beautiful
In all her moods
And seasons.
In heavy rains, brooding,
In Winter’s death, defiant,
In Spring’s rebirth,
Joyous.
In the fullness of Summer,
Voluptuous, proud,
Breathtaking,
And in the blaze of Autumn
Offering the fruits of her labours
To all her children.
I am full of this place,
Her forests, her rivers,
Her birds, her animals,
This suffering place,
This place we have desecrated
This place we have almost destroyed
With our greed and stupidity.
Her anguish
Is my anguish.
Her vulnerability is mine.
Her beating heart
Is my heart.
Her fate is my fate
Her dying
Is my dying.
And if,
In a billion, billion years,
Another web of life arises
For this little, spinning planet
Of rock and water and minerals,
Could it ever equal
What we have
So carelessly destroyed?
__
Mary de La Valette
September 2016
