burning rain forests
wild animals with shrinking space to live
growing air pollution
smog in major cities
more than 3,5 million deaths
     due to respiratory diseases
global warming
new insects and other beasties
    in the formerly cooler regions
extreme hurricanes  rainstorms  heatwaves
excessive use of fertilizers by agro-industries
bees are dying
blossoms are left unpollinated
biodiversity is in a flat spin
deserts keep growing globally
fossile fuels are still polluting the air
curious dolphins die in the water of the Thames

after so far hundreds of thousands died of Covid-19
it is high time to see the larger picture
to comprehend interactive phenomena

the pandemic brought earth a little recovery time
the waters have cleared
you can actually see fish in the canals of Venice
satellite pictures show clear air over metropolises

suggesting: the new normality after the pandemic
must be significantly different from the old one

do we really need hundreds of thousands to die?
does it need a virus for us to understand

that we need a different relationship to nature?!!

My heart
is a field of sunflowers-
she leaves no petal
unpollinated.

I’ve said it now, twice;
I’ll be dead by Thanksgiving.
November is the cruelest month.
That’s when it happened to you
Ma.  You left with the harvest,
reaped by the devil cells
bearing their fruit in your
bloated throat.

You fell to the floor, rotten
from having hung too long
in your ***** cellar.

I wish you’d died in
But no, you waited
to see me grown, my own
body breeding your foul
flowers.

Now I am broken in my stem
and unpollinated in my mind.
I wait for some death
(I’ll take any) and inch
by inch boredom chokes me.

I cannot outlast this harvest.
I’ll die before you did
with both ******* on
and sober.


Caroline Shank