From east to west the sun’s rich rays spread rampant self-esteem
in playgrounds full of knee-high grass where sheep and cattle dream.
Creeks play chasings, hear them laugh! Rocks tease with hide and seek.
The soil is drunk on water. Cross your fingers luck won’t leak!

The climate spins like whirligigs now carbon’s die is cast.
My heart knows it’s a spiral, but my bones hope good times last.
Did Mother Earth consent to those Caesareans for coal?
La Niña and El Niño switch from waltz to rock ‘n’ roll.

The dry-eyed earth’s repressed emotions rumble deep inside
as dust forms scabs to dress the sores the sceptic eyes denied.
Paddocks, bare as bandages, are barren wastes that bind
my life to anguished Mother Earth, both faces drawn and lined.

The climate spins like whirligigs now carbon’s die is cast.
My heart knows it’s a spiral, but my bones hope drought won’t last.
Did Mother Earth consent to those Caesareans for coal?
La Niña and El Niño switch from waltz to rock ‘n’ roll.

With heatwaves, cyclones, blizzards, fires, Earth bellows “That’s enough!
You big-brains learn some manners, or my lessons will get rough.
Famine mixed with flood creates a placid averaged sum.
You dare to think I’m average? I will crush you with one thumb.”

The climate spins like whirligigs now carbon’s die is cast.
My heart knows it’s a spiral, and my bones agree at last.
Did Mother Earth consent to those Caesareans for coal?
La Niña and El Niño switch from waltz to rock ‘n’ roll.

Robyn Sykes

 

Published nationally, internationally and online, Robyn Sykes’ work draws on her fascination with nature, interest in human behaviour and love of the idiosyncratic. The science graduate has studied crocodiles, peered down electron microscopes, lived in Japan and edited the Yass Tribune. Robyn now writes, observes and learns on a farm.

© 2019