Tag: historical poetry

• Doggerland

  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.
  

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  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.

  September 2, 2022

  anthropocene, climate change, historical poetry, nature poetry, Poetry, submerged

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