you are the one i talk to

at 3am when chasing sleep

but unable to escape my dreams

your stars are friends to me

they are the freckles of the sky’s face

when my light is gone, they shine in its place

i know you and the sun aren’t seeing eye to eye right now

but you both know better

than to let your distance get to you

i hope you make up soon

time is slipping away from us in this world

and you have loved each other for 5 billion years after all

your beauty gives me comfort and peace

my appreciation for you is never-ending

thank you for talking to me again

speckled sunlight dips beneath the trees

pools of beams touching the cool damp ground

they are the earth’s freckles in its shady woodland face

the leaves are dancing and singing around forgotten tree stumps

climbing the winds and falling again and again

their crumpled masses become a hedgehog’s cosy home instead

in the distance a steam is flowing away

trickling around rocks and slipping past its overgrown grassy banks

it is in a hurry and quickens its pace towards the sun

and here i lay

quiet as a sleeping bird

in amongst the tangled underbrush

unbound

we are specks of dust

waiting for earth’s pleasures

to hold us in their arms

and to feel their embrace

the first taste of cherry ice cream on a sun-soaked afternoon

the crash of the waves as the sand engulfs your toes

the rustling trees and the night-time breeze

the white frost

that perfect photograph sur le pont de l'amour à Paris

où tu m'as embrassé pour la première fois

reminds me that i am alive

i think we have a lot to live for

Honey coloured fins mechanically motion back and forth

His circular swims for the eyes of onlookers

Gasps and exclaims of wonder are muted (he does not have ears anyway)

Their tiny pudgy hands marking the glass

Intricate lines of fingerprints mark his home

He does not understand why he is here

With artificial coral and seaweeds that he does not recognise

Little does he know that some are doing our best to conserve what is left

The others left behind gone

Oil bubbles pooling from their mouths as they drown in the sticky black spill

How can a fish drown in their own home

How can I tell my children’s children that the ocean was not always decaying and now deceased

Should I question my children’s very existence

To bring them onto an Earth where the humans in it cannot see what is being lost right before them

Keep looking at that fish in the aquarium tank that you paid to see

Forget about those in our oceans that we have in the palm of our hands