Four Poems

To a Child

This is now your inheritance:
first the scorching sun,
now the monsoon in hemispheres
where it never blew.
I bequeath to you
the river devoid of fish,
the bush empty of song.
It is my wish
that you accept with good grace,
without rancour or blame.
Mistakes can happen.


Christmas Future

Lubricated with resin, the Bushman's blade
sang through the symmetrical tree we had chosen
against the moon.  Our breaths made
spectres in the plantation as the pine fell,
putting roosting pigeons to flight. Our frozen
hands dragged the lopped top clear.
Within the hour its branches were hung with bells
of silver, a fairy at the top where a bird had sang.


The Bushman is rusting on the wall.
In the Christmases to come, no more trees
because of global warming.
The eastern star's dimmed by the man-made haze,
the gift of frankincense a scarce resource. 
Cut a tree for Christmas and the world, its breath
already laboured, is close to death.


 
Climate Change

Somewhere in Africa
a man fishing termites
with a peeled stick
will have noticed the nights,
colder now,
the haze from Nairobi
like a new nebula.
One morning he will wake
to a film of ice
on his lips.


Girl with Mobile Phone

She sits in the Gardens, gazing
into the small lighted window
of her mobile phone,
finger on the button.
How will the call come,
text or spoken, saying:

'I Luv U. See U @ 8?'
Not now, though this is
the cheap time. The gate
will close in half an hour.
She presses the keys
in her desperation,


sending out the signal:
an ordinary girl in Glasgow,
on a summer evening
in the Botanics
wishes to hear from you.