The Hard Yards?

By most yardsticks it’s been a hard week and REM’s song Bad Day is playing on repeat in my head. I suspect it’s playing in the heads of lots of us, even if we don’t know the words - or the tune. We are in a parlous state. I used to believe in the fundamental decency of people, now, not so much. That phrase, ‘we the people’ is one which underpins democracy. Well, the people voted for Trump. The people are likely to vote for Farage or for other far right populists who can’t wait to stand on the necks of the poor, the vulnerable, and those who present as the slightly different.  I find this utterly depressing.

Yesterday I had to drive to Trowbridge, where I had been invited to read some of my poetry. I had planned to go by train but it was cancelled. The next train wouldn’t have got me there on time so I drove. It was a beautiful day and the route is quite scenic. I was, however, taken aback by the number of flagpoles sporting Union flags I saw along the way. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a love of one’s country I suppose but how might that manifest in practical terms? Do the flag flyers also support policies to improve the biodiversity of our country? Do they protest about the awful state of our rivers? Are they concerned about the tangible effects of climate change on farming and on settlements prone to flooding? If not, what is the point of the flag?

In a way the two poems speak to this subject. What do you think?

What If

We make an apocalypse of ourselves    reap

the no good    no bright    no light   of our sowing     

What if   evolution has made us dragons    curled

on pebble-hearted spoil heaps of the Anthropocene

plastic rubbish    concrete     bitumen   safe in our claws

in   the dark   away from the condemnation of trees

away from the hoarse auguries of crows who

tell us   we have scorched the earth with our rank

breath   and our every movement is   incendiary         

what if     what if    we listened    braved

the limits of our nature     crept towards the

entrance of our caves   beyond the farmer’s spleen

what if     blinking in the unaccustomed light    we

watched some tendril twist itself round spindle branches   

inch itself    up   from some deep root beneath

our trampled mess   towards the blessing of the season

Dictionary Corner

abstract: from the Latin ab, meaning from,

away

and trahere,

meaning to pull or to draw

Abstract: (n)

a summary of points;

a piece of art with no attempt

at pictorial representation

or narrative content

We no longer draw what we see,

no longer shape clay into animal,

or mark the page with the

hundred greens of forest;

we have lost the ability to summarise

the way each part of our lives

contributes to the whole.

Abstract: (adj)

existing in thought or as an idea

with no physical or concrete existence;

relating to, or denoting art that makes

no attempt to represent external reality,

but seeks to create its own effects

through use of colour, texture, shape

We have lost the idea of a world,

a place we share with

the wolf, the deer and dung beetle.

The swallows seek clean skies;

we have rubbed out the trees,

coloured our vision with grey.

There is no name that describes

the shape of an oak tree.

Abstract: (v transitive)

to draw away attention from;

to steal; remove or separate;

to consider apart from any

application to,

or association with,

a particular instance

We steal the water from our rivers

for money;

we are enriched but thirsty,

cannot imagine a circumstance

where there is nowhere

for trout to swim.

We campaign to save bees,

hedgehogs, but spray

the fields with poison,

lay down lawns of artificial grass.

Sometimes we wonder

where the insects have gone

and what some people mean

when they say the soil has

only sixty harvests left in it.