This poem is about our naïve belief that we can do something to protect ourselves from the forces of nature. Our desire to build a wall around ourselves in our homes, to keep the nasty things that can happen out. However we try we are pretty powerless, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

NEST

We humans like to make a nest
where we can wallow, in a hollow,
surrounded by the very best.

A nest to keep us safe and warm
and comfortably clad,
a nest to keep the outside out
where it can do it’s thing,
without express permission
to get in.

And in this nest we find we can
control the forces of the world,
the earthquakes and tsunamis
that threaten to impinge upon
our construct of paradise.

Our level, Eden garden, playing fields,
where divets are all gone,
and all the multiplicity
of life’s little complexities
can be one.

A nest that we can make
with loving care,
reliable and always there,
with plant pots and a picket fence
so welcoming and warm,
a place that is a welcome haven
in the storm.

But best beware
you keen nest builders everywhere,
that nature is much stronger
than the nest that we create,
to dot the I,to lock the door
to keep life out, will simply be
a futile cry for help.

Deep below the rubble,
when time decides to burst the bubble
of our fickle security,
we may realise at best
that this is just a nest
that perches on the branches
of a bigger tree,
that grows outside the garden
of the likes of you and me.