Charity shop is my clothes label

My garden is my supermarket

Home-made my take-away

My shoes are my wheels

I use paper not plastic

I reuse and recycle

I save and avoid

My footprint

not too

big.

I worry about this world

Rivers and streams drying up

or spilling over with polluted waters

The tūī sipping nectar from the kowhai

Honey bees weaving through native flowers

entrusted to our care.

But when I look about

and step into town

my efforts

feel like nothing

nothing but a fragile feather

tossed around

in an torrent of the greed or business

and the broken promises of governments and authorities

littered with laziness and lies

buried in a mountain of let’s-have-fun rubbish

and thrown in the too hard basket.

How can other people not care?

I do not want this blue marble we call home

to shatter

and turn to dust.

But I am just one

of nearly eight billion –

so let our actions

multiplied

be a feather-weight

for our planet

to bear.