A poem a day: Praise the warming world (Try to) - after Adam Zagajewski
Author:
Robyn Maree Pickens
Publisher:
Otago University Press
ISBN:
9781990048609
Date Published:
16 August
Pages:
88
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$25.00
Happy National Poetry Day! Wherever you find yourself, we hope you have the chance to take part in one of the 150+ events planned to celebrate all things verse. This week, we’ve published a poem a day and we end on Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day with a selection from Tung, the debut collection from award-winning Ōtepoti-Dunedin poet, Robyn Maree Pickens.
Praise the warming world (Try to)
— after Adam Zagajewski
Try to praise the warming world.
Remember the crisp delineation of seasons; the sting of winter and the pond that froze each year, blades clinking on ice.
The pinecones that fell around the edges and lay entombed
all winter long and your mother who swept away fresh snow each day. You must praise the warming world.
You watched icebergs shear off Antarctic glaciers one of them floated off the coast of your city while others melted into the scent of salt.
You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere
you’ve heard the silence of detention centres and deportation. You should praise the warming world.
Remember when I licked warm honey from your burns in a quiet room bright to the eyelid with sun.
Return to that small hut perched on the edge of the lake.
You traced ripples made by oars with your hand and snow filled in the earth’s furrows and sores.
Praise the warming world
and bare branches strung with bird song and the stray light brushed with wing beats on a clipped winter’s day by the pond.
From Tung by Robyn Maree Pickens (Otago University Press, $25.00)
To read more about Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day, see https://tinyurl.com/5n998vxm
To learn more about Tung, see https://tinyurl.com/4vtsxpxvhttps://tinyurl.com/4vtsxpxv
