About Roger
Roger Chao is a writer based in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, where the forest and local community inspire his writings.
Passionate about social justice, Roger strives to use his writing to engage audiences to think critically about the role they can play in making a difference.
You can find his poem A letter to the Children of Tomorrow here.
The Last Flight of Mariposa
Far north in the boughs of a blood-redwood tree, where the morning mist curls and clings,
A monarch was born with the sun on her wings, spun fine from the breath of spring.
Her name, Mariposa, was whispered by leaves, and the wind bore it far through the land,
And she fluttered her veil of gold-laced flame like a spark from the earth’s own hand.
She danced on the edges of eucalyptus smoke, in fields where the cane grass swayed,
Where the kookaburras laughed in the ironbark limbs and shadows were softly laid.
But the call of the South beat deep in her heart, a rhythm both old and wise,
A map in her chitin, etched long ago under orange ancestral skies.
From coast to inland plane, the river winds twine through land burnt brittle and cracked,
Where floods once roared now silence reigns and the sky hangs still and slack.
But Mariposa must follow the route, through heatwave and storm-split skies,
For her kin await in a cedar grove far off where the winter dies.
She flew past the towns with their highways wide, past the mines carved into the hills,
Where the soil was gutted and ochre-bled and the diesel air gave chills.
She skirted the smoke of a backburn blaze that had leapt from a careless spark,
And the sun turned bronze in a veiled lament as it sank through the dusty dark.
At times she faltered on poisoned breeze, where crops lay crisp in rows,
And the scent of flowers was sick with spray, though their petals still proudly rose.
But the pull of the South was stronger than death, than the cry of a brolga’s song,
And she pressed her wings through the ache and haze, for she knew she must belong.
Through towns half gone to ghost and drought, she danced past sagging sheds,
Where old men watched with leathery eyes and tipped their battered heads.
“She’s one of the last,” said a time worn woman, “not seen them like this for years,”
And the child beside her followed her flight with wonder and sudden tears.
Their stories still live in the flight of wings, in patterns the stars once wrote,
A memory held in the thread of silk, in the scale on a monarch’s coat.
They say they remember the taste of milkweed, the rustle of prairie grass,
Though they’re born anew, with no map but time, in each generation that’s passed.
But the land is shifting beneath her now, with each degree that climbs,
And the flowers bloom too early or late, out of sync with the ancient chimes.
The rains don’t fall when the hatchlings stir; the winds now betray instead,
And the trees where the monarchs roost each year stand broken or charred or dead.
Yet Mariposa flew on through the void, over dunes where the silence sings,
And her wings bore light from the dawns she passed and the memory of vanished springs.
She dodged the claws of the butcherbird and the net of the orchard’s mesh,
And rested her soul where a schoolchild left a feeder of fruit, still fresh.
She saw the cities sprawl and gleam, their lights like stars grown cold,
And the humming roads that never sleep, and the towers of glass and gold.
But no flower grew on the concrete plain, no murrnong lined the verge,
And so she rose through the steely dusk to where moon and hope converge.
And at last, she came to the southern grove, though it barely breathed or stirred,
Its canopy thinned by the loggers’ blade, and the cry of the nesting bird.
Still, there stood one lone cedar tree, with leaves like mourning lace,
And she clung to its limb as her kin arrived, frail flames from time and space.
Together they covered the ghostly tree like lanterns lit in a prayer,
And the stars looked down in a hush of grief, for so few were gathered there.
Once they would come in millions strong, a storm of saffron and flame,
Now dozens alone, survivors all, bore the weight of the world and name.
Mariposa, her body thin, her colours dulled by flight,
Watched as the dawn touched each trembling wing with a final kiss of light.
And though her life would end with the breaking sun, her story would endure,
For one egg lay on a seedling leaf, fragile, perfect, pure.
And maybe that child would rise in spring, when the land finds breath anew,
When the rivers run and the gidgees sing and the sky reclaims its blue.
Perhaps she’ll fly where the flowers still blossom and the warmth of the wind remains,
And follow the song of her mother’s path through storms and fire and rains.
Now sing, my country, of wings like fire, of a journey fierce and far,
Of a creature small as a finger’s breadth that’s guided by the star.
Teach your children the old, wild ways, where the earth and sky align,
And guard the groves and grasses well, for the monarch’s flight is thine.
A Symphony of Cicadas
At the hush of dusk where the she-oaks sway and shimmer in the heat,
Where red dust curls like whispered smoke aside a traveller’s feet,
There comes a sound both strange and vast, like strings under the stars,
A rise, a reel, a rhythmic chant that dances through the spars.
No fiddler bows nor flautist breathes to play this pulsing air,
No man could claim the credit for the music quivering there.
It buzzes from trunks and bark and soil, from root and crown and limb,
The ancient choir of cicadas, in chorus, wild and grim.
They slumber long in earthen crypts, beneath the she-oak’s hand,
For seventeen or seven years, they wait below the land.
With eyes like glass and wings like mist, they sleep in muddy gloom,
Then rise with thunder in their throats to greet the world in bloom.
The summer cracks her furnace door, the creek beds gasp and steam,
And out they crawl from sacred soil, still tangled in a dream.
Like pilgrims dressed in armoured shell, they climb the trunks with care,
To split their backs and step anew into the golden air.
The bush begins its symphony, a droning, drumming wave,
A chant of thirst and firelight, of the silence that they brave.
It echoes through the bottle trees, across the sandstone rim,
A lullaby and battle cry that rises, fierce and grim.
No conductor calls the rhythm out, no sheet to guide the tone,
Yet every tree’s an orchestra, each note is all its own.
One voice begins, a subtle chirr, like wind behind the eaves,
Then thousands join in trembling ranks under the burning leaves.
The males cry out for love and fate, their music raw and proud,
While females listen, silent-eyed, within the sonic cloud.
A war of wooing, fast and fierce, their only chance to mate,
For soon the heat will fall away, and close the season’s gate.
A week, perhaps, to live and sing, to sow their blood by stars,
Then fade like notes upon the breeze, or echoes lost in bars.
They die in heaps below the trees, pale ghosts on crimson ground,
Yet in their passing, life begins, still buried, safe and sound.
Their eggs will hatch then soon enough, the nymphs will drop below,
To burrow into dark and wait as years and seasons go.
The fires will rage and floods will come, the bush will sleep and wake,
And still beneath, a thousand hearts in slumber will not break.
My, what strange patience nature keeps! What clock within her chest
Ticks out a tale of waiting long, of sleep instead of rest.
They know not war nor wealth nor woe, nor death by cruel design,
They live to sing and sing to love, and mark the pulse of time.
From city parks to desert sands, from coast to inland plain,
The chorus plays from mountain spine to washed-out windowpane.
The children press their faces close to windows, blinds and screens,
To watch the wings like coloured glass, like dreams from in-between.
The elders nod, for they recall the cycles of the past,
Each song a memory reborn, each summer not the last.
They speak of years the skies were full, when branches seemed to shake,
And how the nights would whine so loud, it kept the farmstead wake.
And even now, with roads and wires and towers stretching high,
The city lights that mask the stars and whitewash out the sky,
Still comes the sound, unbending, pure, unknotted by our needs,
A beating, winged testimony from the songline of the seeds.
And who are we, if not like them?, we wait, we rise, we call,
We seek for love, we find our tune, then yield and lose it all.
For in that losing, life begins, a rhythm passed along,
A measure held by those to come, a silence borne in song.
Henceforth when you stroll amid the tree, or sit through twilight’s haze,
And hear that sound that stirs your chest in deep and cryptic ways,
Know this: it is a symphony, not chaos, not despair,
But nature’s strange and pulsing hymn that rises through the air.
The cicadas sing of more than love, or mating’s brief delight,
They sing of waiting through the dark, of finding voice and light.
They sing of turning earth and ash, of things beyond our ken,
And ask us in their fleeting trill to live, and sing again.
Guardians of the Wetlands
By lands where river-reeds grow en mass and egrets wheel in flight,
The wetlands dream beneath the sun and stir beneath the night.
Not idle swamps, but living veins that pulse through field and fen,
They guard the world with silent strength, far more than minds of men.
A hush of frogs at the fall of dusk, a croak, a splash, a cry,
A heron still as sculpted bone against a saffron sky.
These mirror-lands of silver breath are more than just a view,
They hold the songlines of the land, the ancient sacred cues.
Where callistemons crowd the banks and pobblebonks alight,
The wetland wears its emerald cloak and guards with subtle might.
It holds the flood, it cleans the stream, it makes the waters stay,
And when the drought begins to burn, it gives its soul away.
It is the sponge that soaks the storm, the shield against the flame,
It is the breath the outback draws though never speaks its name.
It is the mother of the mangrove, cradle of the cray,
It whirrs and drones with damselflies and bears the tide’s ballet.
The platypus and bittern low, the snake-neck bird in glide,
The bandicoot who builds a nest where sedge and bulrush hide,
They owe their breath, their place, their path to wetlands deep and wide,
Though still we drain, and fill, and pave, and toss their bones aside.
Please listen now, you council men, you miners, makers, kings,
You dam the flood and lay the pipe but miss the song it sings.
Each cattail lost, each pond erased, each lotus crushed in vain,
Becomes a stitch undone in cloth we’ll never weave again.
We name them ‘waste’, these fertile lands, these temples thick with dew,
As if their worth is not the life they give to me and you.
Still every reed that roots below and every algae bloom,
Is cleansing poison from the stream and fending off our doom.
And when the rain runs dark with sludge, when rivers choke on foam,
The wetlands rise, a final stand, to bring the waters home.
They filter filth from farm and field, they cool the furnace sun,
They do the work of empires, yet their payment is but none.
And still the dozers dig with hungers wide and crude,
To carve the heart from marsh and bay in greed’s unyielding feud.
They do not see the hidden world below the paperbark,
Where microcosms teem with life and lungs breathe in the dark.
A thousand creatures call this home, from rush to mottled teal,
Each one a thread within a web we barely know is real.
The glossy ibis, low in flight, the azure kingfisher,
Depend upon the pools and swamps that man would soon defer.
And shall we lose this rich palette for car parks paved and bare?
Shall red gums fall to cranes and drills and leave the shoreline spare?
No, not yet, not while we stand with voices strong and loud,
To guard the guards of land and sea with heads and hearts unbowed.
The guardians guard us in turn, we owe a sacred debt.
They calm the storm, they feed the root, they hold the rising threat.
The saltmarsh holds the ancient bone, the ghost of tribe and flame,
And we are keepers now, in turn, to honour every name.
From northern range to southern shore, from floodplains wide and slow,
To lowlands veiled in silver dusk, where southern breezes blow,
The wetlands sing in tongues of green, in rakali and crake,
In reeds that whisper rainfall back through morning’s breathless wake.
And shall we teach our children this, that wetlands are a friend?
That what we save today must be the life that they defend?
That sacred land is not just dry, nor is it dust and rock,
But thrives within the swampy field and sings where lilies flock?
Let policy be penned with care, let hands restore the chain,
Let science meet with ancient lore upon this sodden plain.
For Aboriginal eyes have seen what we forgot to feel,
The power of the wetlands vast, their dreaming deep and real.
Their spirits do not walk alone, they dance in mirrored tide,
They sit within the still lagoon, with ancestors beside.
And if we dare to drain that soul for progress cold and brief,
We sell not just a land, but love, and story, and belief.
Then let us tread where soft mud clings and listen for the drum,
Of frogs that bark and whistlers call when twilight shadows come.
Let every wetland be revered, defended, named, and known,
For they are guardians still of earth, and not of them alone.
They are the lungs we did not see, the hand we did not hold,
The memory of waters pure before the mines took gold.
They are the wombs of feathered kin, the shield when rivers fail,
And still they wait, with patient grace, beyond the pick and rail.
Pray come, dear heart, and stand for them, these lands both drowned and dry,
Where whirligigs stitch mirrored seams across the open sky.
No child should one day say of us: they watched the wetlands die,
But rather, “Here the guardians lived, and still, they will not lie.”
The Call of the Wild
I once wore a mask made of deadlines and stress, where the air never tasted quite right,
And I lived by a screen in a boxed-in routine, far away from the birds and the light.
Each day was a shuffle through corridors grey, and my voice was a soundless refrain,
Till a whisper broke through in the depths of my chest, like a song I had heard once again.
It came through the walls like a wind from afar, like a memory just out of reach,
Like the scent of the rain on a hot-blooded stone or the hush of a twilight beach.
It moved through my bones with the rhythm of trees, through the cracks in my civilised shell,
And I knew, as it echoed its ancient refrain, it was something I’d once known too well.
The call of the wild isn’t written in books, it’s not something we measure or own,
It’s a tremble that starts in the soles of your feet and reminds you you’re never alone.
It’s the lull of the earth when the sun starts to set, it’s the hush when the morning is near,
It’s the rustle of leaves in the breath of the dusk, and it speaks when you choose not to hear.
Next I loosened my grip on the world I had built, left behind the machines and the din,
Took only my name and a fire in my chest, and I walked where the stories begin.
Where the trees don’t explain, and the wind doesn’t judge, and the sky has no need to pretend,
Where the measure of time is a bird on the wing, or the shape that the shadows will bend.
I met with the silence and sat at its feet, let it school me in hunger and grace,
Learned to watch for the language that’s written in tracks and the wisdom in everyplace.
The stars had a voice I had never heard loud while I’d lived with a roof and a screen,
But they spoke with a clarity sharp as a blade and a beauty both raw and unseen.
I drank from the creeks and I bathed in the dusk, felt the cool of the wind on my skin,
And the rhythm of life that moves through the dust began pulsing its drumbeat within.
I walked without noise through the sleeping grasslands, with my thoughts like the moon on the rise,
And I learned how to stand without reason or plan, with the world breathing deep through my eyes.
No signs, no directions, no clock in the sky, just the map that’s been printed in bone,
And the warmth of the earth in the arch of my back, and a path I was making alone.
I watched how the small things adapt and endure, how the toughest of lives still can bloom,
And I knew that the place I had run from so long had been nothing but silence and gloom.
The wild isn’t cruel, but it never is soft, it won’t flatter or comfort your pride.
It will strip you of all that you thought that you were, and then show what was always inside.
You will hunger and hurt, and you’ll curse and you’ll weep, but your soul will grow quiet and wide,
For the wild doesn’t promise a painless return, only one where you stand open-eyed.
The cities, they shine, but they flicker and fade, and their voices are hollow and fast.
They feed you on fear and a flickering screen, while the world moves slow, deep, and vast.
You forget how to breathe in the grip of the lights, how to speak without rushing your tongue,
But the wild still remembers the language you knew when your skin and your spirit were young.
I came back for a time, though it felt like a dream, and the crowd moved like smoke through the day,
With their fingers all tapping at nothing at all, and their thoughts never drifting away.
They spoke of their upgrades, their profits and plans, of the things that they hoped to achieve,
But I thought of a bird high above the white clouds, and the dew on my jacket sleeve.
The wild never left, it just waited for me, patient as roots in the stone,
And now that I’ve heard it, I know what I am, and I know that I’m never alone.
The wind in the grass is a hymn to return, and the stillness a balm to the soul,
And the wild doesn’t ask for your words or your tears, it just offers a piece to make whole.
If one day you tire of the world you’ve amassed, with its bargains and flashing deceit,
And you wake with a thrum in your fingers and chest, and a longing that won’t let you sleep,
Then listen, my friend, for the wild will call, like a flame in the frost of your mind,
And the road that it offers may not be paved, but it’s there, if you’re willing to find.
Just walk with the wind at your shoulder again, with your heart not as burdened or mild,
For the truest of names is the one that we lost, and the voice that we need is the wild.
And once you have tasted the earth with your hands, and your hearts with the stars have compiled,
You’ll never again be a stranger to life, for you’ll know: you are one of the wild.
The Forgotten Voices of the Night
When daylight dies beyond the range and Blackwoods sigh no more,
The hush of dusk begins to creep across the forest floor.
No trumpet sounds, no banner waves, no marching human feet,
But still a stir begins to rise where silence and shadows meet.
The sun retreats behind the hills, the heat begins to drain,
And stars, like ancient witnesses, blink softly over plain.
Below the ghost gums’ silver limbs and skies of darkest slate,
The night folk rise with quiet grace beyond the garden gate.
A rustle near the termite mound, a flicker by the creek,
The world we rarely care to know, the ones who never speak.
A boobook owl with amber eyes, in stillness sharp and wise,
Lands silent on a bark-stripped limb and scans the moonlit skies.
The microbat with membranous wings performs a nightly dance,
Its cries too high for human ears, too quick for human glance.
It weaves between the she-oak limbs, through folds of silent air,
A flitting, unseen artisan who draws no crowd to stare.
And deeper in the understory, where spider orchids bloom,
The brush-tailed phascogale begins to chase away the gloom.
Its paws leave prints on bark and stone, so dainty and so light,
A ghost of fur and flicking tail, a whisper in the night.
The nightjar sings a hollow song from where the grasses sway,
Net-wings like parchment lanterns drift in fragile, fevered play.
Katydids tune their wings with care, then pause before they scream,
Yet softer are mole cricket’s hymns that dance between each dream.
By mangrove roots and estuaries where tidal pulses churn,
The ghost crab scribes its runes on sand, no need for our concern.
And somewhere in a mountain ash, the sugar glider leaps,
While humans sleep through wonder’s hour, the bush no vigil keeps.
But every year, the towns grow out, and flood the dark with light,
They chase away the sacred dusk and bleach the holy night.
A sensor clicks, a streetlamp glares, a drone begins to thrum,
And still we miss the masterpiece the world has just become.
The skinks retreat below the mulch, woylies go still and hide,
The feathertails avoid the roads where death is multiplied.
We stake our claim with neon signs and paint the stars away,
While ancient voices slowly fade and hush before the day.
But where is now the curlew’s cry that echoed through the dusk?
Replaced by motors grinding on, exhaust and oil and musk.
The quoll now climbs a power line instead of stringy bark,
And glows under fluorescent glare instead of twilight dark.
Still they sing, these hidden hearts, though few are left to hear,
They whisper down the granite slopes and shimmer through the clear.
They do not rage or beg or boast, or knock upon our door,
But weave their lives through tangled brush, as they have evermore.
Their voices rise in subtle tones: a rustle, flap, or hiss,
The kind of sound a poet hears and dares not ever miss.
The wingbeat of a tawny frogmouth gliding low and slow,
The glimmer in a bilby’s eyes where star and shadow glow.
You won’t find them on busy roads, or where the cities spread,
But where the lantana creeps unchecked and leaf mulch makes its bed.
Where wombats dig and time forgets, where tree heath drink the dew,
And no one sets a clock to chime, or cuts the dark in two.
Hence when you wander under the moon where melaleuca sway,
And leave behind the brash laments that populate the day,
Let silence take you by the hand and lead your senses right
Into the symphony that dwells within the arms of night.
For not all beauty makes a sound that pleases human ear,
And not all truth is found below the sun, so bright and clear.
There’s wisdom in a spider’s tread across a hollow log,
And deep communion in the breath of mist above the bog.
We’ve made a cage of light and speed, of towers, glass, and steel,
Yet part of us remains attuned to what the dusk reveals.
It’s not too late to listen in, to turn the torches low,
And meet the kin we’ve long ignored, whose lives in silence flow.
Thus may this poem be a bell, a net of sound and grace,
To catch the names we’ve long forgot, to honour every place.
Where wings still beat and feet still scurry underneath our sight,
Let’s raise a toast, and bow our heads, to voices of the night.
The Web of Mycelium
Beneath the trees that reach for skies with limbs both scorched and wide,
Where drongos wheel through whistling winds and grasses shift with pride,
Below the ridged and ancient stones, where roots and silence meet,
There lies a thread of wonder spun beneath our very feet.
It twines through soil and memory, through layers dark and deep,
A hidden net of life and death, of giving and of keep.
It passes under leaf and bark, beneath each scattered seed,
A silent conversation told in gesture, pulse, and deed.
The walker on the dusty trail may never even know
That every step is met beneath by threads that hum and grow.
The children in the meadow’s lap, the elders at their rest,
Are cradled by a living web, unseen but manifest.
Mycelium, the silent root of all that thrives and falls,
A vast and pulsing underworld below the trees’ grand halls.
It links the green, the dead, the young, in networks soft and wide,
No single tree stands tall alone, for kinship moves inside.
It carries word of blight and bloom, of rot and rain and heat,
It sings in tongues of chemical, of touch, of time discreet.
When fires roar and blacken skies and ash replaces air,
It holds the map of life to come, already planted there.
Though flames may char the canopy and turn the leaves to ghosts,
The web lies patient underground, and sends its quiet hosts.
From spores that slept through centuries, from threads that did not die,
New green will rise from funeral soil, and stretch back to the sky.
This is the lore beneath our boots, lines hidden deep in stone,
A mesh of ancient governance, of cartilage, wood, and bone.
The fallen limb, the hollow stump, are not the final verse,
They feed a deeper dialogue that runs in full reverse.
The sapling bends to touch the net, receives what it is owed,
The old trees gift their wisdom down a fungal-minded road.
And in that dark republic, no crown nor throne is found,
But balance flows in quiet loops beneath the fertile ground.
More intricate than any code we press into a screen,
More ordered than the satellites that blink beyond the seen,
Our circuits crackle overhead, but clumsy, brash, and loud,
Compared to what the soil weaves in silence, soft and proud.
The tender bloom too frail to last alone upon the breeze
Survives because the hidden strands connect it to the trees.
The rotting log becomes a nurse, and in its loam and skin,
The spores ensure that life returns where death once lay within.
The cycle turns without our hand, without our grand design,
Decay becomes the bread of life, and fungus is the spine.
The leaf that falls, the fruit that drops, the carcass on the floor,
All feed a web of whispered care that pulses evermore.
Though metal cuts and concrete grows, though walls may steal the light,
The network lies in wait below, with patient, old insight.
Though we forget the thread we break with every mindless tread,
The fungal web remembers all, and nurtures what has bled.
And we, the ones who stand upright, who pave and plan and build,
Might learn a lesson from below, if only we were stilled.
To share as trees are taught to share, to lift when others fall,
To speak in quiet empathy that resonates through all.
Perhaps the way to heal is not in reaching for the skies,
But bending down to meet the thread that humbly underlies.
Not in the stars, but in the loam, the damp, the peat, the rot,
A kingdom ruled by giving back, and keeping what we’ve got.
Hence pause before you clear the land, or claim what’s not your own,
A billion threads beneath you weave a truth you’ve never known.
And every stem that touches sun, and every bud you see,
Exists because the ground below said, “You can lean on me.”
The young must not forget this net, nor old ones lose its worth,
All breathing souls must know the gift, that rises from the earth.
For we are not above this web, nor separate, nor grand,
We are the trembling filaments that make the living land.
Thenceforth walk with care, and speak with grace, and know you’re never far
From ancient tongues that murmur still from subterranean seed and scar.
The fungi knit the world below, with quiet, tireless hymn,
And life is held together by the web of mycelium.
The Ballad of the Ghost Gum Elder
I am the ghost of the ghost gum tree, with limbs like silver bones,
Rooted deep in red cracked earth where time has lost its tones.
For eight long centuries I’ve stood through fire, flood, and drought,
And now I hum a warning song the young don’t talk about.
My bark once gleamed in moonlight’s kiss, my leaves sang with the breeze,
And ‘roos would doze in dancing shade beneath my canopies.
The currawong and cockatoo would warble from my crown,
Now birds fly west or not at all, the silence weighs me down.
I’ve seen the Dreaming walk these lands, in patterns scorched and sung,
The footfalls of the old ones here when Earth and sky were young.
The Rainbow Serpent carved the streams, the sea was full of breath,
But now the salt comes creeping in, and reefs grow white with death.
The spinifex would shimmer gold beneath a noon so wide,
The dingo pack would prowl and yelp along the coastal tide.
Storms would come with rhythm once, a cycle well-designed,
But now they rage or vanish fast, as if the world’s gone blind.
The flame trees flower too early now, the river gums decay,
The waterholes I’ve whispered to dry up and drift away.
The frogs no longer call at dusk, the night feels far too still,
And fire has changed its ancient song, it only comes to kill.
I’ve seen the smoke of sacred fires and miners’ diesel gears,
I’ve heard the cries of country folk through colonising years.
Yet never have I trembled so from roots to brittle limb
As now, when Earth’s own fever grows, and every breath feels thin.
The skies once wore a bluer shade; the clouds had sweeter rain,
And breezes bore the scent of life through every lowland plain.
But now the sky turns strange with heat, the stars blink through a haze,
The seasons slip like loosened beads from Time’s unravelled blaze.
My children, hear the trees that speak, the emu’s vanishing tread,
The fish that once would leap in floods now float, half-scaled, half-dead.
The sun bites harder than it did when I was just a sprout,
And winter’s whisper fades away, replaced by parching doubt.
I watched the mobs in corroboree, feet stamping song to sky,
Their chants would stir the soil beneath, their spirits riding high.
Now plastic wraps the river stones, the cane toads clog the creek,
The old law silenced by the noise of engines when they speak.
And yet, a flicker in the dark, a youth who hears my moan,
A girl who plants with reverence, who tends each seed she sows.
A boy who walks with careful steps, who listens to the land,
Who knows the fire-stick wisdom held in grandpa’s calloused hand.
I’ve stood through loss and regrowth too, through lightning’s wrath and birth,
But never was the turning point so dire upon this Earth.
Not fire alone, nor drought, nor flood, but all these things as one,
A chain unlinked, a map unmade, a setting of the sun.
The elders born with skin and scars now sit beneath my shade,
Their stories thick with warnings too, their hands like mine decayed.
We watch the trucks roll further in, the fracking pipes descend,
And wonder what will hold this land when even roots can’t bend.
I dream of days when bush would bloom, when goannas clung to bark,
When wallabies would court the dusk and night would hum with dark.
Now moonlight spills on clearing sites and drills that never sleep,
And I, a tree with centuries’ sight, can only sway and weep.
So if you walk with barefoot grace and feel the soil ply,
If you can hear the willy wagtail’s final lullaby,
Then maybe there’s a breath to spare, a path not paved in coal,
A way to mend the aching land, to make the broken whole.
Plant trees, my child, and listen well to how the koel cries,
Revive the lore, respect the law, and read the shifting skies.
The land will speak, but soft and slow, not loud like booming trade,
You’ll find the truth in termite trails, in leaf-fall, duff, and shade.
Here I, the ghost of ghost gum blood, still stand though time is thin,
My rings hold songs you’ve never sung, and truths etched deep within.
I offer shade and story still, though few may raise their eyes,
But know: the earth remembers all, and old ones never die.
May voices rise like magpie calls in dawn’s first fevered light,
Like themeda, let action spread across the plains of blight.
For country lives if country’s loved, and kinship we must weave,
Or else I’ll be the last to fall, the final ghost to grieve.
Extinct Voices
I am the shadow that skims the wind, I am the cry unheard,
I’m fur and feather, scale and vine, I’m every silenced word.
You built your cities, cut your tracks, you named the land your own,
But I was here long centuries deep before your kind had grown.
I was the thylacine’s striped flank, I prowled in moonlit grace,
I vanished in the keeper’s gaze, behind the cage’s space.
I paced and pined, a ghost in bars, while watchers came to stare,
And when I died, the world moved on like I was never there.
I was the call of the Paradise Parrot, bright as bushfire’s hue,
Who nested low where cattle graze and grass no longer grew.
My mate and I once flew through flame, through fig and boxwood tree,
But ploughs turned earth and poisoned creeks, and left no home for me.
The hunters came for sport and trade, the fires cleared the land,
And men in coats wrote laws too late with pens in helpless hands.
I lingered last in fading songs the old folk barely knew,
But songs can’t raise what’s now sleeps near where the grasses grew.
I am the coral reef’s tremble, I am the dryland’s moan,
I am the northern bettong’s trail through roots and scrub and stone.
I was the voice within the tide, the flicker in the stream,
Now bleached and bare, my world erodes like memory from a dream.
Toadlets once sang from creeks at dusk with voices loud and pure,
Now silence haunts the banks at night, too final to endure.
The golden toad, the gastric frog, the green and black cascade,
Their tiny hearts went still one year when balance failed and swayed.
I was the blossom on the cliff, the seed that fed the sky,
But chainsaws tore my branches down and left me there to die.
I was the bridal flower on Norfolk Island, rooted high and steep,
Until a careless footstep crushed the soil where I sleep.
I whispered in the grasses tall, the pigface near the shore,
But roads and crops and mining blasts erased what came before.
The desert blooms still mourn my kin, the tea trees seem to grieve,
For every stem and root and sprout you killed but did not leave.
We were the night’s companions once, we drummed and chirped and flew,
We crept through bark, we drank from leaves, we danced in morning dew.
But logging took our hollow homes, and cats took all the rest,
And foxes followed close behind and raided every nest.
The numbat’s stripes are seldom seen, the Leadbeater’s grow rare,
And what remains must fight each hour for just a breath of air.
The smoky mouse, the dunnart small, the swift parrot in flight,
All whisper now in trembling tones, not bold enough for light.
I am the tinker frog in drought, where creek-beds cracked and dried,
My river withered in the sun, no place for me to hide.
And though I linger still in parts, in pockets, barely known,
I feel extinction’s fingers brush the marrow of my bone.
You mine my streams, you dam my flow, you take and seldom give,
But do not lie and say you love the things you see but won’t let live.
Your fences mark the stolen land, your guns keep watch and ward,
But life is not a thing to own, it’s not a prize or sword.
And even still, there now remains a flicker in the gloom,
A hope that stirs in children’s hearts before the world can loom.
I’ve seen them plant the trees again, I’ve felt the soil turned kind,
I’ve heard their voices rise with mine, those few I left behind.
I am the breath in sacred smoke, the dreamtime’s living lore,
I am the feather in the pouch, the claw print on the shore.
The Elders walk with steps I knew, they speak my name in fire,
Their corroborees recall my face with truth that does not tire.
Kindly listen, child, to rustling grass, it may be me you hear,
A ringtail gliding branch to branch, a cry too faint and near.
And pause before you burn or build or cast your stone in stream,
For what you kill will not come back, except within your dream.
A world once full of fur and fang now whispers in regret,
But you can change what time would end, you are not finished yet.
Protect the life that clings and hopes through drought and flood and flame,
Or one day soon the final voice will call out your own name.
I am the silence that speaks aloud, the echo in the dust,
The feather fallen in the wind, the bone entombed in the crust.
I do not hate, I do not judge, but I will not forgive,
Unless you learn from all I lost, and help the wild to live.
For every creature, tree, and stream that vanished with a cry,
I sing this ballad from the brink, too wild, too proud to die.
Remember me in every trail, in every bark and wing,
I am extinct, yet through your hands, I rise again, and sing.
The Dance of Pollinators
Beneath morning light, where wilgas drip and warblers trill and call,
A gentle song begins to rise and wander over all,
From golden fields to grevillea blooms that spill their saffron flare,
The dancers stir with secret wings that shimmer through the air.
They do not court applause or fame, nor seek the eye of man,
But spin the thread of life itself in ways no artist can;
The bee, with saddlebags flecked in gold, a harvester of sun,
Returns to hive with sacred dust when every bloom is done.
The blue-banded and the honeyed kind, the bumble slow and round,
They navigate a world of scent and read the flowering ground,
They speak in steps of sacred code, in waggled lines of lore,
A thousand minds, a single heart, their dance an unseen chore.
Where crowea and bush-pea bloom, they rise with silent grace,
Their passage leaves no footprint on the land they help embrace,
Yet every ash, each banksia tree, and native orchid rare,
Is whispered into being by the wanderers of air.
And wow, the butterflies that flit in stained-glass arabesque,
The grass blue, painted lady, and the orchard-winged burlesque,
Their silken flights are brushstrokes drawn on canvas blue and wide,
They court the light, then drink from blooms with elegance and pride.
The lesser-known, those hoverflies and tiny native bees,
The beetles masked in emerald shell that drift on scented breeze,
Their names are few, their fame is none, but still they play their part,
In orchestrating life upon the land’s vast beating heart.
In mudflat fringe and inland scrub, by dune and meadow fair,
Their dance ignites the silent spark that blossoms everywhere.
No orchard thrives, no vineyard grows, no melon swells with rain,
Without the touch of wings that pass and softly bless the grain.
They are the soul of bud and fruit, the weavers of the thread,
The ones who labour silently where lesser eyes have tread,
And in their flight, the world is stitched into a living song,
A harmony that sounds above the human shout and throng.
For danger walks the edges now, with poisons sweetly named,
The fields are sprayed, the forests cleared, and none will take the blame;
The flowers shrink, the numbers fall, the dance becomes a crawl,
And still we chase convenience, blind to nature’s muffled call.
Neonics in morning mist will steal a hive’s whole fate,
And monstrous ploughs will slice through homes where soft wings pollinate,
The monocrop will sprout alone, a sterile sea of green,
While once there danced a thousand kinds, now barely one is seen.
The pesticide, the parasite, the foreign weed and flame,
All play their parts in quiet death that bears no face or name,
But in the song of failing wings, the silence drawing near,
We glimpse the edge of all we know, and tremble at its fear.
Though not all tales are wrought in loss, resistance too takes flight,
In gardens grown for nectar’s sake and hedgerows set to right,
Where schoolyards buzz with native hives and rooftops breed the swarm,
And wildflowers burst through concrete cracks with joyful, bright reform.
For in the hand that plants a seed or leaves the clover be,
There beats a bond with things unseen, a pact with air and bee,
Each blossom nursed, each spray unused, each lawn that we let grow,
Becomes a vow to join the dance and let the old ways flow.
The children learn with eager eyes the names of wing and flower,
They build the paths for bees to roam, and mark the butterfly hour,
They catch the gleam of cuckoo wasps in hakea at dawn,
And hum the ancient rhythms that the pollinators spawn.
Give voice to elders’ dreaming tales, of bushland deep and wide,
Of sugarbag in hollowed trees and rainbow wings that glide,
Set stories loose on open tracks from coast to red heart’s flame,
So every child might know the pulse that keeps the world the same.
And may we write with tender hands the futures still to come,
With cities green and rooftops wild, and laws that do no harm,
So that the buzz returns in spring, the flutter graces skies,
And all who dance from bloom to bloom shall never meet demise.
What are we, without their grace, their artful, tireless flight?
A species blind to golden threads that bind us to the light,
So pause, and watch the blossom stir bathed in the golden sun,
And give your thanks to those who fly and keep the world as one.
The Green Will Rise
They laid the ground with steel and stone and called the earth subdued,
With girders rising to the sky, in triumph, proud and crude.
They paved the soil with asphalt black, they poured their roads like tar,
And swore the bush would never grow where engines groaned and sparred.
The cranes had danced like windless wings above the dying clay,
And concrete scars were cast like tombs to hold the land at bay.
They tamed the flow of ancient streams with pipes and rusted steel,
And silenced roots that once had crept through underfoot with zeal.
But under boot and wheel and wire, away from human hand,
A quiet force began to stir, deep in the dreaming land.
A seed, no wider than a tear, held fast within the seam,
It cracked a stone with gentleness, and turned towards the gleam.
A weed pushed up through blistered tar, where heat had split and bust,
A blade of green so slight, so soft, it rose from powdered dust.
No hand had placed it in the world, no gardener gave it care,
But there it stood, a sovereign stem, defiant in the glare.
A moss had made a velvet bed upon a factory wall,
Where soot once choked the creeping vine that now begins to sprawl.
The bricks were black with age and ash, the mortar flaked and grey,
But still the tendrils coiled like script where birds once flew away.
In alleys dark where bins are stacked and footfalls rarely sound,
The ferns unfurl in secret shade and root in broken ground.
A gutter clogged with bitter leaves gives home to bud and bloom,
And dandelions light the dusk with parasol perfume.
Where man has left his grandest dreams in rust and jagged glass,
The green returns with slow resolve to claim the space at last.
A windowless forgotten house, its floors a sagging shell,
Is veiled in dusky coral pea and bower vine.
The roof collapsed, the walls now split, the stair a brittle spine,
And yet a gum shoots through the tiles and leans into the shine.
Its bark is scratched with graffitied vows from decades dead and done,
But overhead, it lifts its limbs and gathers in the sun.
They tried to bury wilderness beneath a builder’s pride,
To say that progress rules the land and keeps the wild outside.
But time does not forget the song of root and leaf and loam,
The forest does not grieve the loss; it simply reclaims its home.
The vine does not petition law, the lichen files no plea,
The seed does not negotiate, its protest is to be.
With every crack in urban lines, with every brick we lay,
The quiet hands of nature reach and gently pull away.
A train line drowned in wattle bloom still hums with iron ghost,
And palms erupt in car park seams, in silence, bold and close.
No map can chart the path they take, no plan can hold them back,
They grow where they are needed most, along the softened track.
They do not speak in human terms, nor yield to spade or flame,
But rise again through drought or flood, relentless, proud, and tame.
For even scorched and trampled soil will clutch the morning dew,
And turn its blackened grief to gold with every stem that grew.
A single blade can tilt a slab, a root can break a wall,
And in the smallest patch of green, the wilderness will call.
The gardens built in structured rows may charm a fleeting eye,
But nature’s work is never neat, it’s vast and strong and sly.
With every lawn so tightly mown, a creeping patch returns,
In every fire’s afterglow, a seedling twists and yearns.
You cannot kill the will to live that lingers in the stone,
The earth reclaims, the green endures, and nothing stands alone.
Now when you pass a wall of grey or walk a railway stair,
And see a leaf that found its way through shadow, grime, and glare,
Know this: no power born of man, no tower high or deep,
Can cage the pulse that moves the roots or stop the seeds that sleep.
The green will rise without applause, without design or need,
It cares not for our monument, it only knows to breed.
The quiet war that nature wages has no fanfare, no sound,
But every bud’s a battle won, and life retakes the ground.
The Great Barrier Grieves
The Great Barrier grieves beneath the waves, in silence, cold and blue,
Her gardens fade to ashen ghosts where once the colours grew.
She whispers through the currents strong, a voice so faint, so thin,
As corals bleach and fish depart – she mourns for what has been.
Once, she shimmered, wild and free, a kingdom deep and bright,
Where emerald reefs and sapphire tides would dance with golden light.
The turtles swam through tunnels wide, the dolphins spun with glee,
The ancient homes of living things stretched far as eyes could see.
But now her hands are brittle bones, her heart is choking fast,
For poisoned tides and human greed have shattered what should last.
The waters burn, the warmth too much, the salt is thick with pain,
And where the coral cities thrived, now emptiness remains.
She did not wither on her own, nor fall by nature’s hand,
She did not beg for towers tall to claim her sacred sand.
She did not call for drills to hum, for oil to stain the waves,
She did not ask for nets to drag her children to their graves.
No, this was not the course of fate, nor time’s unyielding pull,
But men who measured out her worth in profits sharp and cruel.
They carved her beauty into graphs, into reports and charts,
They placed a price upon her life, then tore her world apart.
They let the smokestacks kiss the sky, they filled the air with lies,
They fed the Earth with chemicals and watched as species died.
And when she cried, they turned away, ignored her every plea,
As if a dying reef was just a problem for the sea.
The clownfish drifts in hollow halls, his home a faded shell,
The manta rays glide slow and weak through a warming hell.
The giant clams have lost their glow, their rainbow edges pale,
And sharks, like ghosts, now roam alone through currents sick and stale.
Where once the whales would breach and sing, their voices long and low,
Now silence grips the shattered reef where nothing dares to grow.
The seahorses cling tight to wrecks, their tails around despair,
The starfish count the ones who’ve left, but none are left to care.
The Great Barrier grieves, she weeps, she fights, yet time runs thin,
For every summer sears her wounds and deepens what’s within.
And though she calls to those on land, her warnings tossed like waves,
The ones who hold her fate in hands just dig more shallow graves.
They call it “natural,” say “reefs die and new ones always grow,”
They shrug, they smile, they print their charts that tell us what we know.
But nothing thrives where poison spills, where heat melts every cell,
And science speaks, the elders warn – the future’s hard to sell.
The governments sign their hollow deals, they promise “change” and “care,”
Yet still the coal ships stalk the waves, still toxins taint the air.
They speak of beauty, pledge to save, yet sign the papers fast,
That auction off her lungs and bones – how long will this farce last?
How long before the reef is gone, a memory in stone?
A photograph, a distant tale, a place the world has known?
How long before the children ask, “What was it like before?”
And all we have are echoes left of all that was no more?
The Great Barrier grieves, but still she breathes, though shallow now and weak,
Her currents churn, her waters rise, her voice is hoarse but speaks.
She reaches through the storm and tide, she stretches to the shore,
She begs for time, for hope, for change – to be ignored no more.
For though she’s wounded, though she aches, her heart still beats below,
And if we dare to heal her scars, she might yet start to grow.
If hands once used to break and steal now reach to mend and heal,
Perhaps the tides might turn again, perhaps the wounds might seal.
The poison poured into the waves can one day clear and fade,
The coral ghosts might bloom again if reparations made.
The turtles might yet swim once more through forests made of light,
The whales may sing their songs again, their voices full and bright.
But this will take more than a speech, more than a fleeting trend,
More than a ribbon or a post, more than what they pretend.
It takes revolt, it takes unrest, it takes the truth out loud,
It takes the ones who care to rise, unyielding, fierce, and proud.
The Great Barrier grieves, and so she should, but will she grieve alone?
Or will we stand, demand her life, demand the world atone?
Will we defend what still remains, protect the life still there?
Or will we sit upon the shore and simply watch, and stare?
The sky turns dark, the oceans boil, the storm is drawing near,
The clock is ticking faster now – the choice is sharp and clear.
To fight, to rage, to rise, to act, to break the chains of greed,
Or lose the last of all she holds – the future left to bleed.
And so, she grieves, and so she fights, and so she waits to see,
If those who broke her will repair or let her cease to be.
The Sky is on Fire, and So Are We
The sky is on fire, and so are we, the air is thick with death,
The smoke rolls in like a funeral shroud, stealing away our breath.
The trees once whispered ancient songs, now all they do is scream,
And rivers run with embered ash where water used to gleam.
The world is burning – do you see? Or do you shield your eyes?
Pretending that the rising flames are just a red-stained sky?
The hills that stood a thousand years now crumble into dust,
And all the creatures flee in vain from greed disguised as “trust.”
Yet still, they drill, and still, they burn, and still, they sign the deals,
Still, they tell us “calm yourselves,” while stacking up the bills.
They sit in suits, they sip their wine, they tally up their wealth,
While firestorms rip across the land and choke the world itself.
The sky is on fire, but it didn’t just start – this blaze was set long ago,
With promises made in parliament halls with corporations all in tow.
They struck the match with their policies, they fanned the flames with their greed,
They cashed in on the land’s last breath and left the earth to bleed.
They tell us that the rain will come, that seasons work in waves,
But all we see are cinders now, and all we dig are graves.
For every field of blackened bones, they offer thoughts and prayers,
As if the forests care for gods who never answered theirs.
They mine the ground and drain the seas, they gut the sacred stone,
They call it progress, call it growth, while tearing flesh from bone.
The warnings came, the elders spoke, the signs were always there,
But wisdom doesn’t fit their plans – so they pretend they care.
The sky is on fire, and so are we, but some still feel it more,
For those who walk on stolen ground, the loss cuts to the core.
This land was never empty space, it thrived in hands that knew,
How fire cleans, how seasons move, how Country speaks in blue.
But now, the smoke has drowned the stars, the trees are black with grief,
And where the Dreaming once stood tall, remains a thief’s relief.
For when the fires take their toll, the miners set their sights,
On lands that scream but cannot fight against their legal rights.
The koalas cling to charred remains, their voices hoarse with pain,
And rivers boil, the fish float up, the earth cries out in vain.
Yet in the towers built on lies, the men still play their game,
They count their profits, shake their heads, then set the land aflame.
The sky is on fire, and so are we, but we won’t be burned away,
We march beneath the choking clouds, we fight, we won’t obey.
The time for pleading, time for talk, has long since turned to ash,
We’ve learned that waiting patiently just lets the wealthy stash.
For every promise left unkept, for every law ignored,
For every leader bought and sold, for every voice outscored –
We take the streets, we paint the signs, we block the roads they pave,
We stand where forests used to stand, we fight for what they crave.
They call us radicals, rebels, insane, they say that we go too far,
Yet they’re the ones who light the match and leave the world with scars.
They jail the ones who dare to speak, who dare to block the tracks,
They call us criminals for truth – yet never look back.
The sky is on fire, and so are we, but fire can cleanse, not just kill,
It burns away the rot and greed, it carves a path, it bends to will.
The flames that tear through hills and homes may try to take us down,
But from the embers, seeds will rise – new roots will break the ground.
For every tree that fell in pain, a hundred more will grow,
For every law they try to pass, resistance starts to flow.
We are the voices, loud and fierce, the ones they cannot tame,
We will not bow, we will not break, we are the burning flame.
So let the sky ignite with rage, let every storm cry out,
Let every voice be heard at last, let silence turn to shouts.
We will not let this land be sold, not let it turn to dust,
We are the fire that fights for life
And we will rise – we must.
My Country
Australia, you build your monuments high, so the past stays out of sight,
You paint your flag on every wall, like red and blue will make things right.
You sing your songs of golden days, of mateship, pride, and land so free,
But beneath your feet, the earth still weeps for what was stolen by decree.
You bury your past beneath the roads, beneath the mines, beneath the steel,
You carve your wealth into the ground and hope that time will help it heal.
But the bones of history push back, they rise through cracks in sunburnt clay,
For justice isn’t washed downstream just ‘cause you turn your eyes away.
They named the streets for those who came with muskets, chains, and poisoned lies,
And statues stand with granite pride while truth lies shattered where it dies.
You wrote the books, you told the tale, of how this land was tamed and won,
But never spoke of blood-soaked soil beneath the blaze of settler sun.
The land remembers, though you don’t, the broken treaties left unsigned,
The whispered names, the silent screams, the families lost, the ties that bind.
The rivers know, the mountains too, they carry wounds that never fade,
And every gum tree hums the names of those who fought and those who stayed.
You teach the children lies of “peaceful settlers, empty lands,”
Convenient myths to cleanse the blood still drying on your nation’s hands.
But history is not a ghost to lock away and leave unspoken,
It is the ground on which we stand, and that foundation’s cracked and broken.
They tried to strip the tongues away, to scrub the dreaming from the lore,
To steal the songs, erase the names, pretend there was no war before.
But history is written deep in ochre, sky, and sacred stone,
And truth, though buried, never sleeps – it rises up to claim its own.
I do not write this from the scars of chains that never touched my skin,
I do not claim the stolen pain, nor stand where only they have been.
But silence is a deeper crime, a quiet knife that twists the wound,
And comfort built on buried pasts is comfort that will end too soon.
This isn’t guilt – I did not sail, nor trade in flesh, nor sign the lie,
But if I stand here blind and mute, then tell me: am I not an ally?
A debt unpaid, a story lost, a reckoning yet to begin,
To turn away is still a choice – to bury truth is still a sin.
I will not claim the stolen song, nor speak where others have their say,
But I will listen, I will learn, and I will stand and clear the way.
For knowing means there is no peace in ignorance, no pride in being blind,
No flag worth waving if beneath it, ghosts are clawing through the bind.
Australia, your past is buried deep, but graves can only hold so long,
And truth is like the burning grass – it sweeps the land, it moves, it’s strong.
The stories rise in tongues of flame, the voices speak in winds that howl,
And no white lie, no flag, no crown, can silence what the land will growl.
One day, when statues crack and fall and streets are given rightful names,
When elders sit in parliament, not pictures in a history frame,
When truth is carved into the laws and treaties are not just a dream,
Then maybe, through the smoke and ash, you’ll be the country that you seem.
But until then, the land still weeps, the rivers grieve, the past resounds,
And no amount of buried bones will mute the drums beneath the ground.
For history is not a ghost, nor dust that settles, fades, and flees –
Australia, you bury your past, but truth still whispers through the trees.
Digital Serfs
In the glow of the screen, where pixels dance and flicker bright,
We trade our days for data streams, surrendering the night.
Our minds once clear, but now cluttered, hum with endless scrolling,
In the depths of cyberspace, we’ve bartered hearts for trolling.
The morning sun, obscured behind the blinding, blue-lit haze,
No longer calls us from our dreams; instead, the screen’s bright blaze.
Demands our first and final thoughts, consumes our waking hours,
Its pixels form our new domain, in which mankind now cowers.
Once we walked in open fields, where thoughts could roam so freely,
But now we’re chained to circuits cold, bound by technology.
The world outside, so full of life, now fades into a blur,
While we, like moths, to glowing lights, in trance are drawn to stir.
Our privacy, that sacred space, where once we could retreat,
Is now a market’s currency, where buyer and seller meet.
For every like, for every share, a piece of us is sold,
Our memories and dreams and fears, for profit’s sake are told.
We hand our secrets willingly, for what? Convenience, ease?
The latest app, the trending feed, dopamine’s small release?
In the illusion of control, we click, we tap, we type,
Unknowing slaves to algorithms, in every single swipe.
The walls of serfdom rise anew, though not of stone and clay,
But made of codes and cookie trails, that track us day by day.
We toil within this digital fief, where masters are unseen,
And all the while we trick ourselves: “My freedom’s from a screen.”
Yet freedom’s not in endless choice, in screens both large and small,
It lies within the silent pause, where no devices call.
In moments free from flashing lights, where thought can breathe and grow,
But these are scarce, and evermore, their scarcity we know.
We reach for likes across the world, a thousand miles away,
But fail to see those beside us – our friend or fiancée.
Our laughter comes in emojis, our tears in GIFs expressed,
In person, our voices falter, our emotions supressed.
The screens we hold, they shape our views, distort what once was clear,
And feed us curated visions of what we should hold dear.
They whisper lies of who we are, of what we should become,
In their grip, we lose ourselves, to body shame we succumb.
Autonomy, that noble quest, we thought was in our hands,
Is but a fleeting dream, lost in influencers and brands
For every like and every click, we yield a piece of mind,
Till all that’s left is hollowed out, a shell of humankind.
This digital serfdom, how it creeps right into our veins,
It robs us of relationships, and bind us with its chains.
In this era of modern life, we rarely see the bars,
That keep us shackled to our screens, regardless of the scars.
But still, a hope remains for those who dare to look away,
Who dare to find the sacred space where nature holds her sway.
To step outside the cyber grid, and hear the earth’s true voice,
To reclaim life, in its raw form, and make a better choice.
For in the quiet, unconnected, lies a freedom pure,
Thoughts can wander, hearts can heal, and true connections mature
So let us break these glowing chains, and find what we have lost,
For every freedom worth its name, must bear with it a cost.
The price is small, so step away, ignore the smartphone screen,
For in the end, the life we gain is richer and serene.
Seek the balance, not the bind, in technology’s wide net,
And never trade our very souls, for what we might regret.
The serfdom ends when we decide to walk the path less trod,
Where humans touch, and hearts connect, where real life is not odd
So lift your eyes from backlit screens, and see the world anew,
For life is lived in moments real, where screens are not in view.
Plastic Apocalypse
Where the tide leaves in sorrow,
where the oceans weep
beneath the sky’s wide and endless dome,
Lies a silent affliction,
a slow creeping bane
that shrouds the earth
in synthetic foam.
It slithers through rivers,
it clings to the trees,
a cursed creation
of humanity’s lore,
An eternal ghost
of our desires,
a fragment of dreams
now festering
on every shore.
Borne on the breath
of a ravenous world,
where consumption reigns
with a ceaseless hand,
Plastic, the spectre,
arises unseen,
entwining our fate
in a synthetic strand.
Its birth was a promise
of convenience and ease,
a future where life
could be cased in a shell,
Yet this fragile veneer,
so deceptively bright,
became the harbinger
of a living hell.
In the depths of the sea
where the corals once bloomed,
now lies a desert
of toxic remains,
The fish swim through fields
of translucent death,
their bellies distended
with poisonous grains.
The albatross soars
over islands of waste,
where its kin fall prey
to a cruel disguise,
Their nests
are of bottles,
their food but shards,
and with each new generation,
the hope dies.
The forests that once breathed
the earth’s sweet breath
are choked by a lattice
of threads unseen,
The trees wear garlands
of plastic decay,
their roots entwined
with the human machine.
Even the winds,
once pure and free,
now carry the burden
of man’s decree,
For every breeze
that kisses the land
leaves behind
a residue of misery.
In the urban sprawl
where the streets are alive
with the hum of progress
and ceaseless pace,
We wonder through the gloom
of our own design,
blind to the slow suffocation
we embrace.
Our markets are brimming
with treasures galore,
each trinket encased
in a polymer shell,
But the true cost
is hidden beneath the sheen,
a price we pay
as we march toward hell.
For every bag
that is tossed aside,
every straw
that is carelessly thrown,
Adds to the mountain
of waste we create,
a monument
to the seeds we’ve sown.
And though the earth
cries out in pain,
her tears lost
in the slothful deed,
We continue to carve
our path of despair,
indifferent
to the warnings
we fail to heed.
In the dark of night,
when the world is still,
the ghosts of our folly
murmur their tales,
Of creatures that lived
in harmony
with the earth,
before the advent
of plastic’s veils.
But now those voices
are drowned
in reactor vessels,
and the clamour
of endless desire,
And the world
we once knew,
the world that was green,
is consumed
in a microplastic pyre.
Yet there is still time,
though the clock ticks away,
to turn back the tide
of our self-made fate,
To reclaim the world
that we’ve lost to decay,
and restore it
to a brighter state.
But it will take more
than a passing whim,
more than a token
of fleeting care,
It will take a revolution
of the heart,
a new way of being,
a collective prayer.
For the plastic apocalypse
is not a storm
to wait out
and watch,
It is a slow
and suffocating plague
that brings the world
to its knees.
But within us lies the power
to change,
to break free
from the bonded monomer curse,
To heal the earth
and ourselves,
to find a new path,
and to live in a world
where care comes first.
So let us rise,
let us stand as one,
and cast off
the yoke of our plastic sin,
Let us breathe new life
into the earth,
and let the healing
of the world begin.
In the end, when the plastic is gone,
and the earth is green
and whole once more,
We will look back
on this time of change
and know
that we played a role in the cure.
For we will have saved
ourselves from the brink,
and given the world
a new lease on life,
And in doing so,
we will have found
our redemption,
and ended
the reign of plastic’s strife.
Mountain Journal 
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