By Becky Mackeonis, Nov 28 2018 05:27PM
Clarion Call
(On the day of Extinction Rebellion protests)
Yesterday
a heron stopped me in my tracks,
feet in river-flowing,
motionless as any statue,
such that, but for the duck nearby
I might never have seen her.
I watched
until with awesome speed
she caught dinner!
Blink
and I would have missed
this amazing show
of grace and skill.
But I didn’t
and
I was blessed.
This morning,
I sat observing
a winged gathering
streaming through the skies
like an aerial wave,
borne on delicate
fan-like wings,
whose whirring
glinted in the morning sun,
making the air
shimmer with luminosity.
So many moving as one,
the shapes they drew
on sky-canvas
of breath-taking beauty,
gave the impression
that I was witness
to the very inhale and exhale
of the divine.
A celestial expression
of the glory of life!
Glistening grasses
rippling in the field below
applauded this most spectacular show.
These astonishing displays
of vibrant life
well proclaim the natural choice
But elsewhere,
on this same day,
because we lost do seem,
on tarmac-covered bridges
and bustling streets
ordinary folk
must rise up
in fierce-loving defence
of this miraculous life
we foolishly take for granted.
We humans,
who think ourselves superior
sleep-walk into oblivion
as we fail to
feel the wonder
of starling murmurations,
of heron fishing,
of sun rising,
of sun setting,
In our hearts and souls!
We blithely sign our own death warrants
and those of our children
and all beings,
when we ignore the pain
of land scorched,
trees felled
water polluted, and
life driven to extinction,
thinking we are somehow
separate
from them.
The heron in the stream,
and the starlings overhead,
plead for our awakening.
Oh that we may heed the clarion call
and once more call heron
‘Sister’!
(Becky Mackeonis, ‘Earth Dreaming’ 17 November 2018)
