PAD Days 5 & 6

Day 5 a discovery poem

Inability

As rivers stop clapping

over rocks and stepping stones

As dams slide, exposing

results of activity formerly hidden

beneath apparent stillness

As waters of all kinds

appear as merely ordinary

rather than the subjects

of gratitude we’ve made them

for several years now

I discover I am tongue-tied

unable to counteract

the sacrifice of ancient grassland

to industrial mullock heaps

unable to address

erosion as a state of being

for human being.

Day 6  a night poem

for Dylan Thomas

Alternatives

Some people do not

rage at the dying of the light.

They ignore it

light the lamps of optimism

prove sovereignty with torches

draw curtains

before night, literally, falls.

Others welcome darkness

walk into it, familiar territory,

breathe altered air, deeply,

sing with crickets,

hunt with the owl,

join with the dingo

in a good old-fashioned howl.