Garden of Eden Paradox

 

As individuals and as a species, I doubt we have much time left on the planet. -

Professor Guy McPherson

 

(for my friend, Helen B)

 

1

 

She makes a fire on which to boil water for tea

on the outer edge of the allotment

below the hanging gardens

of dog roses and forget-me-nots,

 

seemingly unaware of the Sixth Great Extinction event,

which proceeds rapidly (according to plan)

without the ability of organisms

or evolution to keep up.

 

She is ever practical, tending fire, and filling the kettle

at the spout, like Eve might've done for Adam.

We muse at the many beets

growing in the vegetable gardens,

 

the cherry and apple trees, the gooseberry bushes

and strawberry plants trailing,

as if gathering in abundance to tell us:

'All is good with the world.'

 

2

 

Soon she will serve tea, as if we were the last

of the tea drinkers,

her fingers still youthful,

hardly aged these twenty years past.

 

3

 

We talk for a long time about the fruits of the earth,

while the sun pours down

its blessings on our ungodly heads,

and the dog, Bella, barks and wags her old tail.

 

On sunny days like this, one might well believe

life goes on forever,

but the truth sayer in me

has already resigned himself to loving,

 

cont...

 

 

 

 

Garden of Eden Paradox cont...

 

as if each day were his last

in the face of abrupt, rapid, and irreversible global warming

in the earthly paradise,

where we talk playfully, collecting elderflower

 

florets for your summer cordial,

(me keeping stum, so as not to upset you) –

knowing not a single soul wishes

to engage in the inevitable extinction dialogue.

 

 

 

Hymn to a Fish

 

I address you, fish of the North Sea

with my conscience – as it is

on the day the world ends – as I would a dew drop

on a blade of grass…

Brother!

 

Even when I close my eyes to dream things up,

reasons, circumstances, glimmering nets,

the sea currents

that brought you to this plate

 

I can hardly confuse your destruction with fate,

the tall buildings, pavements

and eateries of man offer no hiding place

for a pair like us.

 

You are like a garden to marvel at from afar

and I, the vulgar killer

throwing shadows on that garden.

Brother fish! I cannot dream you back to life.

 

 

 

 

Prayer to the Immortal Wind*

 

I see a darkness

 

like a second death coming...

 

Gone

 

the red-backed shrike from the Brekland fens,

gone aswell the Corn Crake with its song

from the grasslands and hayfields of England.

 

Gone the Kentish Plover from sandy coasts

and brackish inland lakes, where our loved ones

play in the sun, innocent as daylight.

 

Gone too the Great yellow bumblebee

like the Large copper butterfly before it,

gone the long-familiar way of the brown bear,

 

grey wolf and wild boar, beaver and lynx,

wildcat and Great Auk, all extant,

all departed from this green, idyllic land.

 

O immortal wind, hear the mournful verse

of bird, bee and beast: restore all (God's creatures)

before man's creations to the living world

 

that we might fly, swim and rove again

in summer sun and winter rain,

on foot and wing, without disdain.

 

*England’s animals and plants have been going extinct at a rate of more than two species per year for the past two centuries.