We have a couple of ClimateXchange vitual 'Poets in residence'. Emma Howell is one, and here are a selection of her poems below. Please note that copyright of the poems remails with Emma.

 

My son 

My son cannot breathe.  He lies in a room where the darkest blinds cannot fight off the sun.

Warnings from the radio - 1 degree higher tomorrow.  His chest moves rapidly, pearls of sweat run down his face.

I watch. I hold his hand.  I pray that the weather will break, that the hospital wards will empty, that my son will breathe again.

Feverishly dreaming he tries to talk, remembering summers from twenty years ago.  Raspberries growing in the garden, all the effort of dragging water from the rain butt to the dry cracked soil.  Chubby hands, determined green fingers.

Like my son, the raspberries are fading, withered by ultra violet, parched, desperate.

I wait.  I hold his hand.

© Emma Howell (for a son with pollen asthma). Written in the Conjuring the Heroic creative writing workshop, Theme:  20:20, a dystopian vision of the future. "For evil to triumph it is only necessary that good men and women do nothing" (to misquote Edmund Burke)

 

Guerilla Gardening

 

I skulk and sneak and move in shadows.  An agricultural apparition, a dream that may have happened.

I propagate and regenerate, reclaim and redistribute.

Robin Hood of the trowel and compost, ensuring that Goldilock's bowl will always be full.

You turn and turn again, bemused by the bulge of raspberries on roundabouts, embankments aglow with Cinderella's pumpkins, tomatoes abundant on grass verges.

And then I move on.

Learn from me, share the secret, take the seeds and the hidden spaces, the unused earth and eat and give and prosper.

© Emma Howell

 

Because...

 

I love you.

Splashing in your raindrop wellies

Jackson Pollock mud splatters down your back

Thrilled to be wet, and filthy and three.

 

I love you.

Penguins in picture books

Sucking an ice cube so you can be in the North Pole

Amazed by beaks, and bears and glaciers.

 

I love you.

Engulfed in hoods and scarves and mittens

Sticking out your tongue to catch a snowflake

Believing it will taste like ice cream.

 

I love you.

Beached whale in your paddling pool

Slick like a seal in your sun cream

Wanting to know and try everything.

 

I love you

And because of you

If it's the hardest, the last, the only thing I do

I'll try and save the world for you to see.

 

© Emma Howell

 

 

The Road to Hell...

  

I want to save a polar bear,

I really do, I really care

I've seen them on the BBC

Lack of ice, lost at sea

Mothers, cubs, no place to hide

Fighting against an arctic tide

So I want to save a polar bear,

I really do, I really care.

 

I'll go solar, use the sun

Tell my friends, tell everyone

Lose the car, get a bike

Swap Easyjet for Eurohike

Buy organic, no plastic bag

Always recycle the daily rag

From tomorrow you will see

A keener, leaner, greener me.

 

I started well, did my best

Donned walking boots and thermal vest

Marched to town to by my food

(Even though my chums were rude)

But its not as easy as it seems:

The blasted air miles of my green beans.

 

Determined still I persevere

There's a lecture tonight I'm dying to hear

‘Cutting your carbon: what you can do'

And this is where my problems grew

The venue was rural, much too far

So was naturally forced to use the car.

And I sat there, so ashamed

‘Car emissions': I was to blame

 

Things perked up on the journey home

Gave three others a lift, no longer alone

Armed with a list of targets to meet

Planning new insulation, thanks to the sheep

Double glazed windows, excluders for draughts

New waterproofs - how they'll all laugh

But I'm going to save a polar bear

I will not, must not, cannot despair.

 

I'm growing my own, planting my seeds

Composting peelings, cuttings and weeds

Alan Titchmarsh, Monty Don

There's a gardening bandwagon and I'm getting on.

But no chemicals to rid the bugs

And organic ale to lure the slugs.

 

And now I've learnt my work bus route

As obviously I can't commute

My light bulbs are now all correct

And I'm persuading my colleagues they must defect

To a life that is wholesome, measured but fun

Sharing stories of how my conversion begun.

 

I've logged onto ebay to sell my old stuff

Surely three pairs of black boots are enough ?

Loaded up bags for the charity shop

Patio heater - that's for the chop.

Feel liberated by dumping material things

Something inside my heart starts to sing.

 

I'm going to become a climate change hero

Show it's possible to get emissions to zero

Educate friends with all that I know

Encourage the low carbon lifestyle to grow

And life is now richer, life is more fun

Meeting like minded people to share what we've done

Learning to cherish the things nearby

Exploring new options, having a try

 

But most of all having a pride in myself

Appreciating more than monetary wealth

I know that I can't do this challenge alone

That it's all too easy to stand back and moan

But I do believe in a world that's fair

And still want to save that polar bear.

 

So now when you see me, don't be surprised

All of this walking, I've diminished in size

My commitment and happiness just grow and grow

And I've still got those bloody green beans to sow !

© Emma Howell