We were sitting like a group of Vervet monkeys*
beside a fire in a bucket, casting shadows, trying to keep warm.
Above us the stars trailed with
Light from where they were no longer.
And I remembered all the other times, when
we had said: How can we stop
The sudden heat? The melting and the floods?
The yearly losses of birds, the lack of cuckoo song,
The hunger of displacement.
In my head I made a list of everything we’d lose,
Cornflower, dock, radish, oak summer,
Earwigs, bees, crows, potatoes, cabbages.
But it was far too long. Then I remembered that
being animal, I could live on berries,
green leaves, roots from underground
grown in a patch of earth.
Then Graham said, For goodness sake! Look at this ring of firelight.
We need to make more fires and circles for the soul
Across the beaches and the hills
Lanterns for Gaia,
Not just a label, or a clever name
But light and conversations, to bring changes.
See all those others, across the distance.
And Toby shrugged and grinned and said,
‘OK. I’ll carry on!’
(Luckily it was December, the cold frost time called winter,
That has snow,
and it still mattered to hope.)
Clare Crossman
*Vervet monkeys are an endangered species.