If I Could I Would Be
I. The ground fog that rises from dappled fields
Full of the scent of the earth and all living things,
Musky like dirt and fragrant like flowers,
Floating like wedding sheets,
Layers of microbes and dust, pollution too
Reflecting sun’s heat back into space,
Saving us all from death by global warming,
That ripple, unashamed in the morning breeze
If only you had eyes to see as I do,
The passion of the night rekindled
In dawn’s earliest light with ghostly echoes
Of the sacred and the profane,
God Himself, blessing both outcomes,
As ground fog gradually disperses
With the sunrise, day’s holy light.
II. The hot-air balloon that penetrates
The temple scented clouds that frame earth itself,
Earth as God sees it, the blue planet
A crown jewel in the house that God built.
Clouds whose sharp boundaries seem to vanish
As you approach them, more like, in fact,
The mist of lovers’ imaginations
Than something that can be pinned down
And displayed in a glass topped box
As one might store bought butterflies,
A cruel mockery of nature for impatient spectators
Who carry their dreams in a bag on their back,
As if they might otherwise fly away, or perhaps,
They fear that they will never come again.
III. The drops of moisture that condense
Around particulate matter we barely notice
Thinking the sky especially clear today,
As we shamelessly burden Mother Nature.
Snow flakes too form in this same fashion,
All life dependent on pollution of some kind,
Natural processes do clean the air given time,
And yet it may still be that
Earth itself is skating on thin ice.
Pardon me if I suggest that we first do no harm,
If we all live beyond our means today,
What future waits our unborn heirs?
I, for one, feel quite uncomfortable wondering
If the only reason I am not dead from global warming,
As seems possible, is air pollution from jet planes.
But unanswered still my poem’s quest,
‘If I could I would be’ ground fog, rain,
Or bright red balloon, but why?
One answer sure is poetry is born
In images like these and I would please
A heart that grasps what image tells,
Though mine be poetry’s most flagrant verse…
IV. The one you notice…
Brian Johnston
February 7, 2015
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