Deaths and Rebirth
After an incendiary time
when deaths and injuries have been
so regular as to be almost unremarked,
after such a time as that
the total possessions of a good number
have been reduced to buckets of wet ash,
after a time when our leaders have glibly said,
"this is not the time to discuss our catastrophically
changing climate, no my dear, this is not the time at all",
and calls have gone out for urgent thoughts and prayers,
I wonder if now, with the flames departed,
this might be the time to discuss the deaths,
the causes, and hope for the rebirth of the Prime Minister
into a man of action on climate change?
With the ash mostly settled,
and the bodies repairing or laid to rest,
as is most appropriate, can this be the time?
Can this be the time, Mr Morrison? Mr Taylor?
Or is this the time when our screams
of disapprobation should subside
into compliant mumbles of business as usual?
Is this the time to return to voracious profit-taking
at the expense of more deaths, injuries and dispossession?
After such an incendiary time
of deaths, injuries, of destruction,
this is indeed the time, now long overdue,
to talk about climate change,
to turn the deaths into rebirth
as people of urgent action.
