Your Poems: Nature and the Environment

We invited you to share your poetry with us on social media, considering the impact we have on the world around us, and what impact the natural world has on us. 

Here are some of your responses!

Give the River - Julia Smith

Give the river
The piques of your anxiety
Your dull, down, darkness
The numbed ends of your sore senses

Give it what brought you here
The memories that lay
Prickling under your skin
Throw them in

Give it all
Your madness, your mayhem
Your angry shouts
Your low-shouldered sadness

Give it to the river
To carry
Washing the old you, away
Start again.

Mixed Borders - Emma Bradley

After the vote, I cleared a patch of rich dark soil in the mixed border,
Hidden there, the sleeping seeds of columbine, buttercup and sweet honeysuckle,
Watered in the budding David Austin Poet’s Wife,
Escaping with a ripped glove and long meandering weal along my writing hand.

Now its needle-sharp rose thorns pierce the air;
Nothing but fierce dandelion, couch and goosegrass grow around its base.
Well-armed, I tackle the fallout,
Cross and wincing at each new laceration.

Encircling this embattled island, a continent of wildflower flourishes:
Small daisies wink from thick green foliage,
Tall poppies grow among the fallen daffodils;
Removing my glove, I run my fingers through a press of restless grasses.

In the sunlight, strong stems lean in together:
Lavender, cornflower and rosebay willow herb gift their frangrance
Among tall soft tufts and fronds.
Ragged robin and the tall circaea lutetiana peer with interest
At the barbed fortress of the singular shrub rose
As it tilts and lifts away upon the blade I wield,
And the deep, rich well of good earth to establish.

Phantasmagorical Forest - Louise Emma

Vibrant, omniscient eyes pierce
twilight twitters;
they penetrate each nook
and groove – wisdom swells
in preened and philosophical feathers.

An eiderdown of peace
slumbers majestically –
a calm embodied.

Fresh waters drip-drip tantalisingly
down absorbent and willing stems –
a mesmerising natural craftsmanship –
new shoots thrive through nutrient
and water-tight soil. Potentiality beckons…

Boughs offer gnarled pit-stops:
a place to refocus, rekindle
and recharge – an energetic sibilance
snakes its serpentine symmetry: a coiled and
harmonious interconnectedness of being.

Streams trickle and twine:
Small forces with a shared and
focused path.
The muted jade waterway
hums gloriously along
Its pre-determined route…
offering embedded roots:
fluent fissures of hydration.
A life-quenching force….

Fallen and sepia-soaked leaves
spin, spiral and twirl
to conceive a multi-hued carpet: crisp, untrodden – a
God-like mosaic: no human artist can compete
with its dazzling and mesmerising form.
Effortlessly evolving…

Sepia soaked twilight turns to darkened midnight
tones; sensory patterns heighten
through murky sight –
an intensified showcasing.

Refreshing, replenishing balms ensnare and intoxicate:
Restful – restorative – resplendent.