Neil Creighton Verse-Virtual 2016 December

December 2016

I've always loved the outdoors. The young me lived in a child's paradise, the beautiful Lake Macquarie, a couple of hours north of Sydney. As an adult, I love touring on my bicycle and hiking. I also love the Romantic poets, Keats in particular. I'm besotted by the beauty of the Earth. I don't take it for granted. It seems a sacred place to me. My blog is http://windofflowers.blogspot.com.au/

Editor's Note: In his December submission letter to me, Neil wrote: "For December I submit two poems on the Earth. In "Temple" I celebrate its sacred beauty. "Can We Not Live Together?" is both lament and appeal. In 2014 I walked beside the magnificent Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland and saw how much it had retreated. I was moved by the idea of how exploitative we humans are and our need to act to protect the earth, I believe the only home we will ever have. "Can We Not Live Together?" is the result of those days hiking."

Temple

The nave is fields of flowers,
the aisles are snow and forest trees,
the transept is rippling wind on grass,
the altar rivers, tides and seas,
the stairwells are mighty mountains
leading to the attic sky
and music effortlessly resounds
from wave, bird, storm and soft wind's sigh.
The floating dome is decorated
with endlessly changing hue
of billowing white, scudding grey,
or deep ethereal blue,
and fleetingly in east then west
comes a stained-glass blaze of light,
after which the dome transforms
into star-studded velvet night.

-First Published in "Prosopisia. An International Journal of Creative Writing".

Can We Not Live Together?

I gave you all, said "Come, lie with me,
gaze on me, caress me.
I give you life and beauty too-
all I have is yours to share
but please place me gently in your care.”

But you have torn my garments,
scarred my face, besmirched my skin,
gouged my secret parts-
your rule, cruel; your treatment, rough;
so insatiable you can never get enough.

I writhe in protest.
I heave and crack.
I send mighty tempests.
I stop the rain.
I send parching heat.
I struggle and strive.
I cry out for help.
I say,

"Come, repent, be my friend,
be tender, gentle, make amends.
It is not yet too late to start again.
Think of the future,
before the children bemoan your folly,
curse your abusive misrule,
and you for being a short-sighted fool."

O can we not live together?
I give you life and beauty too.
Can you then not care for me,
love me, work with me
or must I, at last, finally, regretfully,
in deepest sorrow
turn my back and put you out?

-First Published at Social Justice Poetry.

Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF