Ecology Iii Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

Ecology III



Pelagic Complaint The Gull’s Reply




Petrel’s plumes in air, Detergent curd, vile sea,
petrol’s fumes on sea; tern turning through the air;
a letter, here or there, - submergent bird I’ll be, -
what difference to me? all to you, I do swear!

Petrol pours on sea, Erne, earnest, swoops from sky,
petrel soars in sky; soiled Skuas slick-stick sea;
a vowel, ‘O’ or ‘E’, - Oiled Fulmars homeward fly, -
mmall difference! I sigh! All difference to me!

Petrel flying high, Thick petrol rings I spy,
oil on ocean water; seep from listing tanker;
for any shoaling fry slick sickening squid and I, -
the odds on life grow shorter! Eternity, remember!



© Jonathan ROBIN robi3_1007 written 6 August 1977


Ecology


Pollution and spillage,
plunder, rape, pillage,
Earth’s face is turned.
Earth’s beauty burned
Earth’s shame discerned
in climatic warning...

In city and village,
factory, tillage,
Man’s pride is spurned,
Man’s ashes urned,
Man dust returned
with climactic mo[u]rning.

© Jonathan ROBIN Poem robi3_0049 13 December 1975

Ecology II

Cycles some would modify
could cull all promise from the future,
kill aqua flora, fin and feather.
Supersonic trails in sky –
a risk one cannot quantify -
distorting winds and weather.

Climates change and cultures die,
currents warm mankind defy
as seas rise to highest levels ever
and livid coral reefs bone dry.
Watershed threat carbon di!
On politicians who’d rely?

Pollutions [sp]ills some fools deny
when lobbies rich requalify
risks in an endeavour
to twist statistics you and I
investigate as tension high
takes us beyond all tether.

Dangers dire as any lie
upon mankind which turns blind eye
to threats that all together
should meet before too late to cry.
The question is not whether
but when much land today still dry
will seasink beneath leaden sky –
beware tomorrow’s weather!

© Jonathan ROBIN robi3_1006 written 6 August 1977



O Hush Baby Tory

O hush baby Tory, Ecology’s ‘in”,
and industry’s excess will sanction as sin, -
all enterprise, private or public, must see
advantages saving the seal and the sea.

Green power could capture the red, white, and blue,
lean hours for poor Thatcher and all of her crew, -
the Future must settle the Past’s spendthrift spree,
what kilowatts wasted, what lost energy!

Beware, though pollution once sped profits’ rise,
acid rains and dioxide now blanket the skies,
while French leave’s been taken by birds and by bees,
with AIDS round the corner, - Love’s no longer free!

With Tchernobyl cooking though four years have fled,
who knows w[h]att reaction may come to a head, -
the hole in the ozone could soon prove to be
a threat to humanity, Maggie and me!


© Jonathan ROBIN robi3_0167_scot3_0004 parody Sir Walter Scott Lullaby on an Infant Chief written 25 April 1990