The effects of our changing climate are “mirrored, reflected back in koala eyes”. Photo 169999273 © Izanbar | Dreamstime.com.
By Sr Marie Casamento SGS
Scorched dry heart,
mapped on the faces
Of young and old,
rich and poor alike.
Caught by a climate change of a pandemic,
breaking on the surface of the world,
some condemned as heartless.
Scorched dry heart
etched on the faces
Of you, me, him, her
And that lone homeless one.
Mirrored, reflected back in koala eyes.
Water, cupped in ash smeared hands, offered now
by weary worried worn fireman.
Scorched dry heart,
pinched in broken lines
of blurred boundaries,
and upside down worlds.
devoid of hugs, kisses and warm touch
as disasters tug apart
the very strings securing the essentials of life.
Scorched dry heart,
wrapped in masks of silence.
Tied by the very chords
that once uttered recognition.
Muffled sounds emanating
as ventilated breath
bids fatal farewells.
Alone,
Alone now in the stillness of isolation
Thunder clapped awakening
Cracks soil and hearts alike.
A puddle of a pool forms,
In the eye of the giver
Mirroring tears of pent up emotions, spilt out on scorched hearts.
Koala crumpled faces world wide,
are one in that moment,
that moment of instant recognition
In the vulnerability and the emptiness.
Time and place have no bounds now.
Ashened scorched hands
promises met in a cleansing moment of hope.
Houses will be built.
Vaccines world wide will be found.
A climate change
breaks the drought,
stills raging flames,
In that moment when the koala in us
Laps water in ashened hands.
This poem was published in the October edition of The Good Oil, the e-publication of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan.