Noah had it good
when he built his boat back
when the world could be purged with a flood
though boats now abound on surging seas
there are wounds running deeper than water
can touch in the breach
between Noah and now we were known
by the world and we acted in kind now
we are the un-kind
unmaking man-kind while
all that is man-made may never end
ignorance governs ruin
molten plastic prowls across a known seafloor
that should have always remained mysterious
I no longer long for children
can’t bring myself to bake them screaming
into this oven-world yet if the day came
they would be raised in respect
of all things sharing their binding parts: water
carbon bone and marrow romp together
kicking up clean mud and throwing old stones
in the shallows of a world reborn
“I came to ecological writing out of a profound disconnect I was experiencing, between myself and the natural world. Poetry became the lens through which I could explore my relationship with the wild, and a vehicle to carry and express my grief and anxiety about the biodiversity crisis we find ourselves in. It is into this world that we are constantly bringing life, at the same time as we are creating destruction. Like little gods, we create, and we destroy. At this time, I cannot bear the responsibility of bringing children into a world where every day I am struggling to find hope. Into a world where they will inherit a responsibility that gets harder and harder to fulfil. When there are many children, who I may not have borne, but who would benefit from a home as kind as the one that I will build.”
Tara Brown is a London-based writer, audio producer and environmental activist. Founder of eco-poetry collective and social enterprise, Wild Thing Poetry, her writing has appeared in magazines such as Alchemy Spoon and Free the Verse, amongst others. She is working with Transmission Roundhouse on an upcoming audio series exploring poetry in the wild.