be ready

be ready...

as it rains
on your parade
and the rising water
reminds you of seaweed
and turbulence

as the sun
sets in its firestorm
behind skyline smoke
and the noonday heat
burns the oxygen
from every
laborious
breath

as feast
and famine
walk the streets
like predators

as night falls
and ye of little faith
have only the comfort
of strangers

be ready…

for war
kith against kith
and kinship itself
war here and now
in the soil and in the earth
a rebellion of the seasons

be ready…

for weapons
and retaliation
in the small hours
hungry dreaming
behind the eyes’ sorrow
and the rain that scars
wind-flensed skin

skin
weathered
by this climate
of change

© BH, 2019

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The elephant in the room. Everybody knows and everybody is paralysed. The elephant currently is on fire but it’s already poisoned, drowned, changed unutterably.

We can name it; we do. And nobody does anything material to deal with it. So, everybody ignores what everybody knows.