From Tamar to Tweed

April Challenge 22 (for Earth Day): 1. Write a nature poem. 2. Write an industrial poem. I'm combining them.

Note: The Tamar and Ben Lomond in this poem are in Tasmania, and this Tweed is in northern NSW – namesakes of the originals in England and Scotland.

Looking through pale new willow leaves
lettuce-green, at the silver river,
Ben Lomond purple on the skyline behind,
she never dreamed a future
so far north of there,
with still a mountain,
a strange-shaped mountain,
three peaks: two humped, one pointed
and another silver river
wide to the tropical sky.

News comes from the island
home of her childhood,
about a mill to be built
on that swift silver river
to turn the tall trees
to pulp for paper.
It will taint the sweet water,
small creatures will die.
She remembers swimming
there in a time that's over.

Now she swims in one of the coastal creeks
and walks the beach to gaze at the ocean.
There's a mill here too, built long ago.
It processes sugar.
Gradually over the years
the operation has become cleaner.
The smoke nowadays is white
that used to be black.
She likes sugar
and paper. But.

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

23-6/4/08