Doggerland

/ Conny 
I travelled by land,
	did not come by sea,
I wasn’t carried
by the rippled surface you see today.

I slowly walked here		a long way
following a trail,
footprints in the sticky black earth.
A syllable by keratin, 
	indentation made
in the search for food and water,
	the edges already crumbling.

	Nothing was wasted,
I made a hunting weapon out of antler bone,
Soft skin protected me.
We were together, I 	grateful.

All this was mine and it wasn’t 
an easy life,
but I was free 		to walk
			where I wanted to
	and I was full,

until the earth shook
and the land cursed me,

with bruise-coloured water, cold, dark,
	but not without life.

Until I learned
	new uses for skin,
		salt settled on me like a sheet.

Then I was full again.
	I was free to float
where I wanted to.

I hope you like this new poem I’m sharing with you today. I’m considering this poem as the opening poem in my new book that is coming out in the summer of next year. The book is going to be called Thrutopia, after the term coined by philosopher Rupert Read in an article published on the Huffington Post UK website in 2017.

16 thoughts on “Doggerland”

  1. I never heard the word “Thrutopias” before. Oh my. It makes so much sense after reading that 2017 article (so relevant still), by philosopher Rupert Read.
    He says, “But it is too late now for our survival to be pictured in utopian terms in the sense of the society that the changes needed produce being ideal. Grand technological utopias or purely localist utopias are no longer credible, because it is clear that climate chaos is going to reap untold devastation across the planet before we get through it (if we ever do). It is no good any more to put on a happy face and pretend that a brighter-than-bright future awaits us if we get the wicked problem of climate right. Twenty or thirty years ago, maybe, but not now.”
    I gasped at reading this.

    Then he says, “What are desperately needed, but as yet barely exist, are what I term thrutopias . Thrutopias would be about how to get from here to there, where ‘there’ is far far away in time.

    I think Thrutopia is a wonderful name for your upcoming book and the poem is stellar too. Loved it. Loved the phrase about “learning” in the poem. We will need to LEARN so much. Need to be open to LEARN. Thanks for sharing, Conny. The intro to the philosopher and to your blog: priceless. Blessings.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I hadn’t heard the term before either. Only came across it recently. And yes, it is a bit of a shock to realise that the damage is done, and we’ll have to find a way of living with it. It seems that literature, art and film can show people how to adapt and make small changes for the better without preaching. My book will by no means be a guide. It’s more of a journey, how through my own dealings with personal trauma, I became disenchanted with the current status quo, and how I’m trying to figure out a future path for myself.

      Like

Comments are closed.