Category: Poetry Festival

A Poem by L.J. Williams © 2020

Whatever has the tender earth done to Charlotte Black!?

She used to roam the meadow, soft and green, and

Pick the pristine daisies while the sun was still serene.

It teased her from behind the clouds, which she would scry

It sent its gentle rays to sparkle brightly on the stream

That burbled over friendly rocks, and warbling birds

Would join the chorus with their song, and

Charlotte Black would feel their joy, and sing along.

She felt the soft, brown earth between her toes, and

Asked the bubbling water where it comes from;

Where it goes. She wondered, too,

What mysteries lay in rotted logs,

How long trees lived;

What was hidden in the forests;

What lurked in bogs; and

What turned tadpoles into frogs?

But Charlotte doesn’t go there anymore.

The sun is now a hostile host, the sky is crossed with

Vapor trails and song of birds are thin upon the air,

And as for frogs, well, they’re no longer there.

The buzz of bees is silent and the meadow flowers

Mourn the absence of their suitors; now they’re

Wilted and forlorn. The stream is dry and poisoned

With some run-off undisclosed, and the gentle earth is

Acrid, and it burned poor Charlotte’s toes.

It scalds the tender skins of fragile earth worms

As they toil. The rain that fell so soft upon her face

Is now as acrid as the soil.

And Charlotte said:

“The tender earth laments her woes; and tears her

Grassy hair that’s often dry from lack of rain.

She spews her rage in blackened lava flows.

She throws her rocks around, and screams her pain

In winds of hurricanes and storms. Her insects,

Now unchecked by predators, attack in swarms.

She shakes the earth until it trembles, and it cracks.

She drowns the world in floods; she sheds great tears,

But nothing can assuage her pain, and nothing can

Expunge the gross abuse of countless years.

She vents her rage in wild fires that consume the trees,

And burn her forests black. And Charlotte cried:

“If only the ‘Old Ones’ could return, and

Water poor old Gia with their tears…

If I go there again, I fear, I won’t be coming back.

Maybe I’ll sink into some vast hole in the ground,

Or I’ll be hit by fragments of falling space debris,

Whatever has this harsh world done to trash its home,

And finally bring poor Gia to her knees? ”

But is it all our fault alone? What if the tender earth

Is going through a ‘change of life’ that’s all her own?

Will Gia ‘die’, or will she slip into a long, long

Sleep while her ravaged body casts off any trace

That there ever was a human race?

Perhaps this would have happened anyway,

For earth is old, far older than we know, and

She must go through planetary cycles of her own.

There is much talk of ‘New Earth’ in the

Higher realms, but we will have to ‘slip our

Earthly bonds’ to enter in, and like the lowly

Snake that sheds its skin, we’ll have to grow

Beyond the mind-set that we’re in.

And search for what our hearts already know.

This planet is our home,

But through our heartless greed and

Lack of love and gratitude, we have increased

Her Pain, and therefore, ours, of course.

Through lack of loving husbandry.

The Earth is ruined, and drained of all her

Vast fecundity; her rich life force.

No longer can she bear our weight.

She’s had enough, and like a burnt-out wife,

She’s seeking a divorce.”

So, this is what the tender earth is driven to,

And it may be some many thousand years,

Or more, before she makes it back.

How sad for you; how sad for me

How sad for Charlotte Black.