today, the heat chronicles
the tale of years past,
cracking streets into scars
that seek and speak the tongue
of our collective ignorance.
my body is wet in the brittle wind,
malleable to the textures of carbon
and sawmill dust, as if in a charred
photograph (going monochrome).
how do i picture a paradise of
poetic plenitude, when i find
the earth splitting open (cracks/
whips/holes), on this sweat-laden,
blue-spotted, anticlimactic day?
.
© Anmol Arora
Day 21
(Inter)National Poetry Month
Edit: Unfortunately, I didn’t find the time to write a new poem. Linking it up for my Poetics prompt at dVerse, where I have asked the poets to explore the theme of climate crisis in their written word and provided some reading material including poems and significant new research reports for further information.
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“how do i picture a paradise of poetic plenitude, when i find the earth splitting open (cracks/ whips/holes), on this sweat-laden, blue-spotted, anticlimactic day?” Gosh such powerful word-smiting in this one, Anmol! ❤️ Alas according to the weather report .. the temperature is only about to get worse 😯😯
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This poem is filled with amazing textures, Anmol. And asks the right question round about now. How do we continue to seek the poetry in a marred world.. and why?
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“my body is wet in the brittle wind” – what a great line. You are such a visceral writer.
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the earth as a color photograph and the color draining out of it is so haunting
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Visceral indeed; strong message, muscular words. How can we continue to write poetry while sitting on the tilting deck of the Titanic? The more important question is how can we not?
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Loved this Anmol. What a paradise this world could be, and would be, if not for – sad to say it – human beings. Until I see proof otherwise, I see humans as earth’s cancer — and the patient is growing more critical every moment.
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Beautiful write Anmol. I specially love that third stanza as if I can taste and smell it:
my body is wet in the brittle wind,
malleable to the textures of carbon
and sawmill dust, as if in a charred
photograph (going monochrome).
Thanks for hosting.
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Your cracked earth poem resonates with me. I have an inch and a half wide crack in my back yard that seems to be getting bigger. Our collective ignorance… something to think about!
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The painting by Beth Munro illustrates your hot day beautifully, Anmol. Your poem is stunning, and you’ve conveyed the intense heat palpably, particularly in the phrase ‘cracking streets into scars’, and the final lines:
‘how do i picture a paradise of
poetic plenitude, when i find
the earth splitting open (cracks/
whips/holes), on this sweat-laden,
blue-spotted, anticlimactic day?’
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Great opening, with the heat a livid “chronicle” of “years past.” And how indeed can we write poems in a time so “anticlimactic,” charged with the antimatter of soaring weather? And we are just beginning to mount this merciless stair…this is just one degree C of warming, and we are headed for 3 and worse by the time our children might survive to our age. Is there a poetry of annihilation, where the speaker is both victim and scourge? We must find out. Great challenge, Anmol.
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Writing poems is only a moral option if we are also doing something positive to put the brakes on. Write about beauty, sure, but make sure it isn’t eyewash. Poets have to do their bit too. I think it’s your part of the world that will be hit hardest first, and when people start fleeing the Indian sub-continent in their millions, the rest of the world will start to see what a real immigration crisis is. Yet we worry about Beyoncé’s new dress and how we’re going to get hold of the latest iphone before everyone else has one.
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A much needed perspective you have crafted so well here.
As humans, we are so powerful but unfortunately more careless and definitely disorganized in solving a global issue, in my opinion.
I especially like…
“cracking streets into scars
that seek and speak the tongue
of our collective ignorance.”
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A very terse hard verse ..
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it’s approaching 37 C today in New York. the tide is rising – perhaps that will cover all the cracks ~
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I really like these lines:
that seek and speak the tongue
of our collective ignorance.
…
how do i picture a paradise of
poetic plenitude,…
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