Author: Christopher Perry

Liberté, Equalité, Humanité

Sky Pink

From along the ridge

I saw through Swell Wood’s winter skeleton

To the sun-bathed Levels

Their rain-full grips and rhynes

Fields; mirrors to the sky

That held the pink tinge

Of chilled noses

Numb fingers

Of frost-smoke breath

Of the cold that will fall

From behind the stars tonight

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n.b. Grip: cut in the Levels to ease water run off. Rhyne: water channel cut along field edges to provide a way to hold drinking water for livestock and to mark boundaries in lieu of hedgerows.

CLP 19/01/2020

Open Plan Living

Homes built to protect

From nature’s extremes hold us

Safe as prisoners

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n.b. Realisation that we are in climate crisis has dawned fastest amongst those who live exposed to nature. Its worst manifestations affect the lives of our poorest and most remote communities first and hardest.

Those of us wealthy enough to close our doors and windows to weather, rich enough to produce artificial climates through air-conditioning systems, privileged enough to fly around the world avoiding rising seas and flooding rivers, are now learning that each step we have taken away from living within the complexity of nature, its inconveniences and discomforts, has led us deeper into a cul-de-sac of technology that reinforces the divide between Earth and humankind.

How can we row back when the tide is against us?

Can we start by stepping out and letting nature embrace us, perhaps? I offer you the following link to a simple haiku that celebrates living in nature…”open to anything” by a writer of rare talent.

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CLP 19/01/2020