written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Saturday 7 August 2021

Peripheral

What a great word, peripheral, meaning variously: auxiliary, external, insignificant, of secondary importance, on the border/edge/fringe/margin, outlying. Be that as it may, as a theme it has not found favour with my blogging compadres this week, for they've all passed on it. Too open-ended, possibly? Too abstract and unfocussed?


Here's my take. I first joined Friends Of The Earth a year after that organisation was founded in 1969. I was prompted to do so after watching a documentary on BBC2 about the likely effects on the planet of the escalating rush towards the globalisation of consumerism and industrialisation. The dire consequences of increased burning of fossil fuels combined with massive deforestation, over-fishing of the seas, over-use of chemicals in intensive farming and increased air pollution from an exponential rise in vehicle traffic were clearly laid out in the modelling presented by the researchers. Their vision of the future was frighteningly stark. That was fifty years ago.

It was completely ignored by 99.99% of the world, dismissed as the doom-mongering of a lunatic fringe, an insignificant concern, a peripheral issue if you will. Some of those astute enough to realise there may be truth in the prognosis chose to believe that mankind would be clever enough to stay one step ahead, to find solutions to all the problems (s)he might be creating on the relentless drive called progress. Others, powerful with vested interests in coal, gas and oil, waged billion-dollar cynical campaigns to debunk the warnings of the climate scientists and for forty years those lies worked. 

It's like we'd all been blinkered. Peripherally, acid rain was falling, forest fires were burning, skies and oceans were warming but we chose not to see or not to care, for the central vision was consumerist: bigger this, better that, faster the other, never had it so good. The bad stuff was just a blur. Even now, when the evidence is surely incontrovertible, the profligacy goes on. 

As ice-caps melt and Greece burns, this new poem is very much a work-in-progress...


Grey Roses
Still lies the one who gave us birth.
Immensely pretty in her youth, and
bountiful as only a mother can be,
she seems absurdly small, used up
and fragile beyond belief in death.

Third degree burns. It's been a long,
hot summer, and she never stood
a chance once selfishness prevailed.
We should have done more, or less,
because she tried in vain to warn us.

You'd hardly call it a fit memorial,
this ceremony in a charred church,
all of us grouped consumed in grief,
too-late remorse for such lack of faith
in the true worth of our inheritance.

Selfish orphans all, we're cowardly,
bandits, rapists of her loins, none fit
to speak her name. We've also little 
left to grace her in her coffin except
a bunch of withered, ashen blooms.

Here's grey roses for you then, and
tears for all the world because who
knew the end of everything would 
come so swiftly and so soon? Or we
would be the instruments of doom?




Thanks for reading, S ;-)

32 comments:

Saskia Parker said...

Wonderful words Steve. I'm quite choked reading that. Let's hope it doesn't happen.

Peter Fountain said...

I'm with you Steve, a member of FoE since the late 1970s. It will be very interesting to see what China and the USA sign up to in Glasgow as they account for nearly half the CO2 emitted each year (China 11,000 megatonnes, USA 5,000 megatonnes, India 2,500,megatonnes, Russia 2,000 megatonnes, Japan 1,200 megatonnes are the top 5, UK is way down with 350 megatonnes). Without those two, we're all just pissing in the firewind.

Nigella D said...

Your poem is very moving and I've been shocked to see the news footage of Greek islands in flame these last few days - truly hell on earth.

Anonymous said...

Devastating!

Mac Southey said...

From what I've seen on the news and in social media recently, it looks as though we are at a tipping point. 19 out of the 20 summers since the millennium have been the hottest on record. And yet the climate scientists will still be called scaremongers by the wealthy corporations and national governments that really call the shots. I can see us fucking this one up and your poem proving all too prophetic :(

Deke Hughes said...

Spot on there Steve. As an issue it's been peripheral for too long. Time to wake up, world, and smell the danger. I assume "third degree burns" in you poem is also a reference to the dangerous increase in average temperature that triggers the escalating greenhouse effect. Very clcver.

Matt West said...

Very well written buddy. That muppet Farage is already slagging off the new UN report as alarmist.

Miriam Fife said...

It's a chilling read, for sure. The problem seems to be how slow everyone is to react, even knowing that what we are doing is unsustainable. I love your poem though.

Emily Blythe said...

A moving poem for a sad prognosis.

Rod Downey said...

Steve, I've said it before, you should have been a campaigning journalist. You would have made a bloody good one. Keep doing what you can by whatever means at your disposal. Your Grey Roses poem is a powerful piece. I can't see what you might want to change (but then I'm not the poet).

Pamela Winning said...

Excellent blog and great poem 🙂

Jade Keillor said...

Too many people in denial for too long. It's going to take brave and unselfish action from leading nations to make the difference and I just don't see that happening, so I'm feeling gloomy.

Max Page said...

Well said Steve. It's certainly a hot topic (no pun intended). Very sad to see Greece, Turkey etc in flames. I thought your poem was great.

Debbie Laing said...

You're right. Climate change (and man's role in it) has been a peripheral issue for too long. It will be very interesting to see if anything substantial comes out of the Glasgow summit. I loved your despairing poem. Is that a clever reference to Ophelia (Here's grey roses for you...) or am I reading too much in?

otyikondo said...

Nice poem, Steve. "...so swiftly and so soon" struck a chord, or seemed to. I could almost hear the harmonium - or was it a Hammond? - in the background. As it was, it's not there in the JB lyric, but the story, so simple and so huge, is just the same:

First the fire, the wind, then the deluge. We're toast, I'm afraid.

All-time records shattered even up here in the pine & lakes paradise.

"Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky.
"

Bridget Durkin said...

Terrific poem Steve. A shame it has to be a requiem for the death of the planet but I hope it reaches a huge audience and touches some consciences.

Sahra Carezel said...

A brilliant poem. 🖤

Francesca Marrone said...

Did you see? We had 48.8C in Sicily yesterday.

Zoe Nikolopoulou said...

Thank you Steve. I think your poem is brilliant, so powerful. Feeling sad for my homeland right now.

Ross Madden said...

Stunning poetry Steve. It gave me goose bumps reading that. 👏

Jon Cromwell said...

Spot on with that blog Steve. A combination of heads in the sand and snouts in the fossil-fuel trough have got us to the edge of eco-disaster. I hope the shocking events (fires, floods, famines) of the last few years really shake the world leaders into doing the right thing soon. Your poem is beautifully done building to a chilling conclusion. Bravo.

Flloydwith2Ells said...

Well said, Steve, both prose and poem. Although I do believe mother earth will survive us, in her own way. She will flick us off like an annoying fly.

Caroline Asher said...

Terrible what is happening. Your poem is poignant and powerful.

Jambo said...

Right on blog. Class poem. We're fucking up here!

Kylie Davenport said...

Your poem just floored me. Well done.

Lizzie Fentiman said...

You've played a blinder again Steve, loved the Grey Roses poetry. Some great lines and a hefty emotional punch. Isn't remorse always too late!

Nick Ball said...

I'm sure there will be some who hear/read a poem like Grey Roses and think "that will never really happen" only to sink back into the apathy that is precisely the enabler of this creeping dystopia. If poetry were still on the national curriculum I'd want to see your poem on there!

Harry Lennon said...

You're spot on Steve. We have lost decades of opportunity to really grasp the issue (while allowing it to get incrementally worse) and I only hope that the dramatic evidence of the last couple of years will persuade world leaders in Glasgow of the need to commit to and enforce radical changes. We don't want a Grey Roses scenario - brilliant and powerful as your poem is.

Sofia Papoutsakis said...

Fires is a disaster for us. Evia island produces 80% of pine resin and 70% of pine honey in whole of Greece. Most of pine forests burned down these weeks. Very sad for livings.

Anonymous said...

Such compelling writing. I think your poem is brilliant.

Trent Walderman said...

Powerful poem, that!

Marianne Seymour said...

Just wow! A brilliant poem and that last verse floored me (didn't see it coming).