Nature/Eco poems
Planting Trees
​The children begged Nature to plant a remarkable Cedar tree. To make it "high as a ladder to carry our eyes to the sky! Paint it forever green. Each branch, like an umbrella to protect us from the pouring rain!" They stippled yellow dots to show the sun streaming through and leaning on the pencil lead, they outlined the trees great spread for the child or squirrels easy climb. Tree limbs akimbo, stretched to swing low like the gangly goose neck seen at the river front. Arms like the elephants trunk swept up waving from that dark bark across the library park To each and every visitor And Nature being so pleased, she granted and planted the seed of this remarkable tree, While other children drew forests... © Mary T Duggan
The New River : Legend and Legacy.
Arkwright understood the power of water ! For four hundred years In its chamfered cut and stepped stretch A New River that courses its sweet waters from the springs of Amwell and Chadwell ; Devised and designed by the local, self-taught engineer Hugh Myddleton with the support of King, James 1, meandering through Hertford To Enfield, and into the bellows of the London basin - This miniature namesake replicates those large liquid expanses - The sacred Ganges ; The gaping Euphrates; A waterway, full of mischief, confusing the Coot and wading warbler. Refusing the towpath walker further use, to disappear underfoot within that subterrane slipstream And reappear elsewhere Out from a hidey-hole to peek-a-boo the bridge and slip the grated grid ; To warps a rainbow ring dunk and skim the dragonfly Skulk a sulk within the silting bio life to dowse and divine That we leave the lug of daily life behind - Become that longing lover besotted by its riverside. © Mary T Duggan
The Cabbage White Butterfly
Fragile as the falling snow, In heavenly descent The tissue wings Of the Cabbage White Butterfly are drawn to the Mock Orange scent Here, clasped in prayer A still scene the creatures wing inhaling and exhaling blessed like a blessed breath. Palm, like the old Coptic fresco : “I go with clean hands ! And though this Common, Cabbage-White butterfly can't compare to that rarer, Cryptic Wood White, It still excites the eye, if slowing to settle and see this common butterfly's unfolding majesty. © Mary T Duggan
Truth against Lies
Cassandra tries truth against lies - Sincerity against austerity - Her curse That so few listen - That so few hear her truth. Like the drip, drip and drop, drop of Antarctica’s tears Below the ice vaults of melting lakes As the rising heat fills the seas And that island ,Paradise, some lost harbour Ears plugged against Earth’s climatic change - The Unbeliever against the truth of nature’s prophecy - Cursed like Cassandra to deny this climate crisis as all spin and lies. © Mary T Duggan