Thankyou to emerging poet, Samantha, for sharing this poem she wrote when she was 17. It was first published in Climate for Change and on a mural in Armagh Street in Christchurch.

By the stream, glowing leaves,

eyelashes of the Earth, shade flushed

apples: Earth’s eyes.

She stares at the farm.

The backyard is scattered with shattered

china mugs and rubbish,

lawn unkempt, gumboots shucked in a disarray,

crusted with mud and sheep blood.

The farm hums in a fizz of flies,

engulfed in a dollop of heat, burning goo.

Sun melts along the walls, the cows, the gumboots –

the radio crackles forgotten

with 2016,

with record-breaking heat,

with not much better now.

Heat sticks to the stream

to water no longer velvet,

but lumpy and pungent

while cows chew crisp grass nearby.

No wonder the Earth craves to lower

her eyelashes, to breathe the cool air

of dreams past.