Bedtime story

By Gaja TALAMINI

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This poem is informed by all I’ve learnt in class and reflects my reaction after reading the IPCC Summary for Policymakers (2023).

Dear grandkid, it’s late
close your eyes
I want you to try
to sleep
under your blanket of smoke
I’ll pray you won’t choke
on the mistakes we made in the past
I hope we will last.

Dear grandkid, it’s late, it’s too late,
It’s past 1 am,
on the clock that’s over our heads.
It’s pushed in motion
by pollution devotion
by lazy ignorance
and greedy hands,
that put brains in machines
that put drills in the land
that flew all the way
to the Moon and back,

yet couldn’t they stop
their own death?

Science knew the whole time,
it told us to stop playing divine,
to stay
behind the line
thinking we are limitless
would be our demise
we didn’t take the advice
we didn’t listen.

And so the numbers went up.

One degree, two degrees, three degrees,
four
I’ll teach you to count on a shore
that’s chocking in litter,
in plastic,
isn’t it fantastic?
How the rays of the sun
get shattered
in those sharp pieces of glass
that now replace
the shells I used to collect at the beach
when I was your age.

Dear grandkid, don’t ask me,
what’s over there
where the waves disappear
in thin air
what’s left of the Pacific, the Atlantic?

It’s now just a gigantic
glass of water
too full

but empty.

Do you understand me?
When I tell you
it didn’t used to be this hot
it didn’t used to be this sickening
what would you know of the vibrancy
of million different species of trees
the sound of the birds, the bees
it’s not fantasy
I promise
it’s real.

It was.

Dear grandkid, close your eyes
dream of a world without lies
told by journalists and heads of States
a white canvas, a new slate
to build cities where skyscrapers
and trees
are the tallest things you see,

a world of school gardens
and organic cotton
where half of the globe isn’t forgotten
and fed to flames
and hurricanes
and floods
but instead, we realise
we have the same blood
we share the same dreams

the same home.

Feel that in your bones.
Your body is stronger,
it can carry you
for longer
your lungs are full
of clean air,
breathe it in
breathe it out

inhale.

Then feel it again,
the sense of purpose
to protect your land

to take a stance,
the instant realisation
that your body is just
the prolongation
of nature

Your veins like river deltas
your eyes oceans,
and now your devotion
is not for a God in the sky
but for the soils that keep you alive

And green is the colour of glory.

Goodnight kid,
This is my bedtime story.