The Harshness Of The Australian Summer Can Provoke A Questioning Mind Poem by Reginald Reid

TIME

I've been looking at a bowl of water
placed for the birds to bathe and drink.
We are in drought,
All around is dry and desiccated,
Lifeless earth hosts dead shrubs and wizened trees.
At night the kangaroos steal away the water
Vainly to sustain their poor emaciated selves.

But I see the water moved by a simple breeze
a poet would call a zephyr,
And wonder if it is alive surrounded by death.

A neighbour passed away the other day.
They blame fear of the bushfires and smoke that stressed her out.
Now another has received a terminal diagnosis and one more a heart attack.
Some plants hang on to life.
A solitary wombat came in nocturnal visits
and turned over the last driveway grass for roots.
The wildlife forage afield having consumed all our green.

Climate change is the new dimension.
Survival is the word one shouldn't mention.
Man sits atop the dying tree and knows not the time.