Poem: The new language

'It’s the third act of the play, my part is given...'

It’s the third act of the play, my part is given

in a language I’ve never seen. Vowel ripe, 

mustard seed split, the OOOs of it now grow. 

I turn to those alongside, strangers  

on this climate island (Isle of my heart).

Sudden friends thrown mud-close.

The skirts of oak root puncture all we know. 

Climate carers are threatened with death. 

On Ararat, land grabs proliferate. And yet…

and yet, hatchlings learn their mothers’ notes:

If harrier, go low. If snake, go high. 

They learn, They change and grow.

And yes, I’ve missed my lines.

Stumbled, smudged and dodged. 

Been lost. And yet, here, I am. Go high, go low.

Our allies by. 

The third act of the prayer is ripe. 

The readiness is all.

Go high, go low. Keep one another in sight.

The wild goose has no definite route,

strikes a broad front, skeins shift.

They grieve. Even variance variates.

The pop-up lakes of the Sahara rise, unnamed;

the funeral liturgy for glacier and species unwrit. 

Nothing constant is. And yet… and yet…

The text of earth and spirit is.

We are and will be formed by it.

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Dana says: ‘This poem comes from a recent retreat on Iona led by Alastair McIntosh, whose book Riders on the Storm addresses how we meet climate change with Spirit.’

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