A specially commissioned poem was delivered to faith and community leaders at the annual Our Faith, Our Planet conference earlier this month.
The Our Faith, Our Planet group meet to identify practical steps to reduce carbon footprints across our region. Earlier this year they pledged those commitments to Pope Francis during a audience with the Holy Father in Rome.
Manchester Cathedral Writer in Residence Tom Branfoot has now penned a dedicated poem entitled Depleted Sestina as a call to action in the battle against climate change.
Read Tom’s poem below.
Depleted Sestina
futurity preserves in the word reserve
in a rainy day not the deepest trench of sea
balance the antithesis of expansion
keep the plates spinning, listen
to the drowning centre, docked in bright
division, it was only a matter of time
you were writing meditations on time
while someone plundered the last reserve
if there is other life, let it be brighter
than we, setting fire to the sea
precarious ecologies, listen
before subsidising expansion
the great petrochemical expansion
temperatures rising over time
microphones in the Arctic listen
to collapsing ice, untouched reserves
we know not the extent of sea
humpbacks breaching bright
because the heat is too bright
when thermal expansion
occurs, swelling the sea
the hottest it has been since time
began, speculative reserves
below the North Sea listen
to economic debates, listen
with remorse as the bright
sparks reverse
years of work with expansion
new oil and gas fields, no time
left for the undulant sea
that sea is not a sea
but a centre, listen
to the drowning time
divisive, flare-bright
cease unwelcome expansion
of exhausted reserves
reserve
sea
expansion
listen
bright
time
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