And These Are the Islands

December 5, 2013 #766

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

And these are the islands, tiny green drops
On the broad bright blue canvas of tropical seas.
And these are the great white wheels spinning like tops,

Swallowing mountains as the sea swallows rocks,
Swallowing churches and children and trees,
Swallowing islands like tiny green drops

With their warehouses, schoolhouses, dollhouses, shops,
With their dreams and intentions and sweet fantasies,
All smashed by the great white wheels spinning like tops

That gorge on the profits of energy stocks
And the fumes of our lust for convenience and ease,
Heedless of islands like tiny green drops

And the people who live on them tending their crops
Or working in offices, homes, factories,
Devoured by monsters spinning like tops

In a line of disasters no tragedy stops
Despite the raw poignance of powerless pleas …
And these are the islands, tiny green drops.
And these are the great white wheels spinning like tops.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/pskpL9Jv9pM.