Full fathom five thy future lies,
bones of bleached coral made,
plastic pearls where once were eyes,
nothing of you left to fade.
Unless we summon a sea-change,
into something fierce and strange,
sirens will hourly ring your knell.
Can you hear the siren song,
of the oceans' passing bell.

***

Look out over into, incredible oceans.
Seas like living mirrors,
where liquid diamonds,
quiver with squinting light.

Curved horizon of possibility,
shore line of fluidity,
a healing place,
of play and repair,
of sandcastle and salt air,
of swim and kiss me quick,
of fish & chip,
of waves and waves
of amniotic bliss.

Home to coral, krill, the narwhal,
the octopus's garden,
hundreds of thousands of species,
to fox even Darwin,
an other world of saline,
diving down deeper down,
stranger than the moon.

In submarine,a secret engine,
imagine phytoplankton,
creatures by the billion,
like tiny leaves,
smaller than our eyes can see,
making every other lung of air we breathe.

Thanks to water gracing
two-thirds of this Earth,
we are the 'pale blue dot',
alive in a barren universe.

***

But this miracle dies,
oceans petrified,
and prehistoric beaks cry,
'your chips or your life,
the end of the sea is nigh'.

Someone like you, looks out on plastic waters,
where birds choke and suffocated fish float.
Someone like you, leaves everything they own,
to save their daughter's bones.
Somewhere, unsafer than here,
the corpse bell tolls,
for someone just like you.

Before a full-length mirror,
drop to your knees,
and catch a breath at the depth,
of this global corporate piracy,
at our mass complacency.
For we are plastic people,
and unless we stop,
will topple like dominoes.

Would you plastify a rose?
Or sacrifice a child of yours?

With corals bleached,
pollution's poisonous stink,
whales are beached,
and species made extinct,
and walls will breach,
drowned towns become tombs,
and the rich and corrupt flee first class,
as the rest of us,
watch seas boil with fire and blood.

In Aquageddon,
where oblivion is welcome,
we are but driftwood,
children jetsam,
fish is fossil,
and only ghosts contemplate the curved line.

Enough is enough,
enough is enough,
enough excuses,
enough!
The milk is spilt,
but let us sob with fists,
for the lost and wasted futures.

This is the last time,
this is the last time,
the last peace, the last breath,
the last chance, the last goodbye.
So stand on the brink,
and look out for the last time,
as sands tick.

There is a place between land and sky,
and its fate is our destiny.

– Now is the tipping tide.
And when the waters break,
climb in the belly of a whale,
like a safe room, or a womb,
where future children,
screaming at the state of the Earth,
will beg to be unborn.
– Now is the tipping tide.

***

The youth,
truth prophets in a fake world,
see tsunami say tsunami,
and shout tsunami.
Ahoy! The ship is sinking!
Lookout! Our ark is on fire!

It's time for urgent sea-change,
for us to quicken and mutate,
into something fierce and strange.
This is the waking of the kraken,
the siren call to action.
In years to come,
a little voice will ask, 'what did you do?'
Who will save this single-use planet,if not you?

So. Stand on a beach together,
each of us two-thirds water,
connected to earth and each other,
like the roots of a sequoia,
by the gravity of things.
No one is too small,
you are not alone, we are all one,
distant cousins under the same sun.
And with the sea as our anchor,
plant your feet in sand or pebble,
and rebel, resist this climate cancer.

Let's gather in a shanty,
and sing songs of the work to be done:
– If you see the future, sing Ahoy!
– If you fear the future, sing Ahoy!
– If you'll change the future, sing Ahoy!

Yes. Step forward rebels, devils,
pebbles in shoes,
that bruise you to remove the comfortable,
and wake and agitate.
Be the grit that becomes Greta,
a girl, a pearl of our time.

Take this feeling and teeming fears and dread,
and magic up the steel to act,
forged in a tempest,
spitting words and deeds,
to defeat what seem impossible odds,
like the salmon leaps,
through weeping waters.

Find courage in the eyes of others,
who give their lives as we slumber.
Crack open ribs, put hands on stopped hearts,
to jump start, to manifest, our beating unrest.

And even if we all must end,
go flying not falling.
If we must hit the ground,
let us fail magnificently,
not hang like surrendered flags,
or dropped stones,
let us skim,
flap our wings and soar,
and facing the sky,
live before we die.
Ahoy!

On a beach, togethering,
gathers the human shoal,
to catch the tipping tide.

There is a place between land and sky,
its fate our destiny.

Hope is Now,
or never.

© Rhett Griffiths (2019)