How can it be? I sit and watch the swirling snow
While far below, in land so wild and free,
Australians choke in suffocating smoke,
Burning in hellish fire, while mud and mire
Besmirch the fragile beauty of their sands.
Let us join hands, across the world
And give our strength to brother men
Who walkabout the tortured lands.
May we undo what man has wrought?
Spirit of Love, which now inspires
Fresh hope and thought,
Suffer no more the pain
Of deadly drought
And drowning floods of rain.
A contest entry
- Appreciate Australia - Battling Mother Nature by Miss Faerie.
4000 points, ended February 22, 18 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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This is well expressed. I was thinking a lot about the Australians there for a while myself. Hope the worst is finished for them.
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Welcome to Allpoetry
Thank you, for the thoughts and the wish that it better then this for us.
Your words show the stark difference in climate in different countries, and the way that it can affect everyone even though only one place suffers at a time.
I hope we suffer no more. But the fire still burns.
Thank you for entering my contest and good luck
Shari
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I would change something in line 1. I myself would cut it into two lines: "How can it be?/I sit and watch the swirling snow". The reason why is that when I read it aloud, the pause at the end of the question I feel, deserves great emphasis. It is so dreadful that someone set those fires!
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You're quite right. It makes a lot of sense to break the line there. But I deliberately set the rhymes within the lines to encourage a sense of destruction, of the breakdown of order within a society and the disjointing of the world in general. I felt that a conventional ordering of rhyme and metre was too dignified for such pure horror. Thank you for a perceptive comment. Keep writing.
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We also suffer fires ...
and I feel the sadness of overwhelming smoke suffocating me. The past few days both the Helderberg in Stellenbosch in our Western Cape of South Africa, as well as the region Eden, from the Wildnerness to George, were covered in raging fires. My prayers to all fire fighters and helicopter pilots who work around the clock, and all those souls around the world who experience some kind of hazard, both physically or emotionally.
Thank you for this very well written poem, Keith. It reset my focus.
Love
Myra
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I really enjoyed reading this and I think you've definitely caught the spirit of the contest's theme.
One small suggestion though - I know you wanted to rhyme " chokes" and "smokes," and "fires" and "mires," but you really don't need the plural form at the end of the line. I know they are perfect rhymes, but in the context of the poem it is an odd use of English. I think the singular would be just as effective - and better grammar.
An excellent poem, regardless.
Best of luck,
Bill
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Oh Keith - we should be able to make it all alright - but we can't. It's a bit like kids that live in abusive families - you can't put that right and undo the damage - the world lives in an abusive family. Oh just ignore me - I get madder by the day. Loved the spirit of this. xx
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