Sunday 1 March 2009

Desolation

The island mined
by greed
to bleak desert.

Penguins build nests
from ancestral
bones.






Previously published on Sketchbook.

9 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

I think the title makes this so effective. Love it.

polona said...

great. powerful stuff

Mistlethrush said...

Do penguins build nests? Didn't know that! Maybe that's because I've been watching too many films about Emperor Penguins.

d. moll, l.ac. said...

Lovely and depressing, well done CGP.

Odessa said...

love the first one. and the title is perfect.

RG said...

Hmmm .. why would penguins nest on a desert island ??/ oh well ... sigh .... Mrs. Boughy, my 8th grade lit teacher, grew frustrated with my lack of poetry skills too!

I did find a small clump of snowdrops blooming on our property!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Mistlethrush - well I may be wrong, but there was definitely fact behind this poem, so i suspect there is at least one species of penguin that does.

Rabbits guy, it didn't used to be a desert island when they started nesting there

jem said...

Striking image and very sad. But I have to salute their ingenuity.

Amy said...

This image brings to mind some footage I saw of the depression era dustbowl in the midwest U.S., when there was virtually no rain for years, and the land had been over-cultivated. The birds built nests out of barbed wire from fences.