Craters from the Sun

1.
Ozone - the lips go round to say it. You can hold
the EN with tongue on palate, like a meditator
holds an OM until her breath is gone.
But you can't hold ozone molecules
in the stratosphere, so long as hounds of chlorine
and bromine stream upward from the habitats of man.

2.
For a time, after Montreal, we tightened the tethers
on these dogs of chemistry. But then came
the Great War Against Islam - and victory!
Prosperity grew rampant as water hyacinth.

Let technology lead us to a Full Table. Let factories
sprout like mushrooms after springtime rain.
Give the peoples of the earth cars, computers,
videos, parks and stadiums for recreation. Build
schools for the young, hospitals for the sick,
gerontoriums for the old. Why "stewardship"
is just another word for "keeping people poor."

3.
Ultraviolet poured upon the earth. Species faded
like signatures to the covenant. Amphibians
the worst. Except indoors or underground as caecilians,
none remain. The sun struck them down with meteoric
photons. Left tiny craters on the ground of life.

4.
On Tuesdays we let the children play
outside, costumed like soldiers in camouflage
and Kevlar. We paint their hands and faces, protect
their eyes with Ray-Bans, counsel the fairest ones
to stay beneath the stunted sycamores.

Shadows of pterodactyls would shade them
if they could, but this is the age when night birds
have their day.

Fred Longworth

Comments from Sachi Nag:

2nd Place Winner

This piece is amazingly vital. A vibrant voice, subtle playful humor
interlaced with insightful vision makes this poem alive, immediate
and biting.

The opening line: “You can hold / the EN with tongue on palate, like a
meditator / holds an OM until her breath is gone” is as impressive
in its reach, realism and impact as it is mood-setting.

In the concluding strophe after “tiny craters in the ground of life” lines
like “On Tuesdays we let the children play / outside, costumed like
soldiers in camouflage / and Kevlar…counsel the fairest ones to stay
beneath the stunted sycamores” and again “Shadows of pterodactyls
would shade them / if they could” in slightly sardonic yet breathtakingly
realistic images brings the imagined premise of the poem closer to skin.

As if the poet were saying, in an expansive, sometimes polemical
sometimes cynical, tongue in cheek way, a world without ozone is no
distant dream, it has happened, it is here, with our consent and will
now push the future generations behind dark glasses under shade.

image: "Stems from a Hole in my Heart", Jennifer Kerr