Zerena

Early morning, lakeside:

a lone fisherman steers his dugout across the waves,

returning from his night’s work, passing the rock where

three cormorants are drying their wings in the early sun.

The fishermen sees that the scientists are already at work

at their station on the beach,

sunlight reflecting from the rotating blades of their apparatus.

These days, his is the only boat. It’s a longer night than it used to be,

harder work, and further from shore;

but the fish are still there, for now, if you know how to do it,

if you know where to look.

The scientists watch him from the shoreline. They know

there is far too much we do not understand. Winds and waves

still confound us, ocean currents, the mix of warm and cold waters;

in one place storms level and flood the land,

in another, fertile valleys dry into desert, and the good soil blows like sand.

All of it caused by the unexpected flutter

of a butterfly in some rain forest clearing -

or it might as well be, for all we know.  And time is short.

The scientists know that we do need to know. We are discovering how

tiny forms of life in the oceans feed not only whales but the climate of our planet;

but what feeds them, and what allows them to thrive?

Or, more to the point, what stops them thriving? The stuff we do,

the stuff we empty into the water, maybe on the other side of the world,

is changing the physics and the chemistry of the oceans,

and therefore their biology too.

Meanwhile, plastic bits and bags are piling up

on the beaches of remote Pacific islands,

and in the guts of turtles, too.

And if the planet is dying,

then be sure that we shall be dying with it.

Standing as we do on the shoreline of discovery,

too often we choose to look the other way, with

our souls replaced by microchips, and our selves encased in chrome;

we must not forget the sober, essential truth

that we ourselves are part of it all.

Early morning, lakeside: all the fisherman knows

is that the fish are no longer what they were, or where they were;

and that, although the morning sun ignites the same rose glow as always

on the hills above the lake, things that used to be balanced

are in balance no longer.

(Note on Wednesday evening  -  Thanks for comments . . . this is still in the early stages of writing, and has a little way to go I think before it's fully ready to be unleashed on the world!)