Poem: Bring Back the Leaf

Cortez Deacetis

Edited by Dava Sobel

They sent out a dove: it wobbled residence,
wings slicked in a rainbow of oil,
a sprig of tinsel snagged in its beak,
a yard of fishing-line binding its ft.

Carry again, provide again the leaf.

They sent out an arctic fox:
it plodded the bays
of the northern fringe
in muddy socks
and a nylon cape.

Carry again, provide again the leaf.
Carry again the reed and the reef,
set the ice sheet again on its frozen plinth,
tuck the restless watercourse into its bed,
sit the glacier down on its highland throne,
set the snow cap again on the mountain peak
.

Let the northern lights be the northern lights
not the alien glow around Glasgow or Leeds
.

A camel capsized in a tropical flood.
Caimans dozed in Antarctic lakes.
Polymers rolled in the sturgeon’s blood.
Hippos wandered the housing estates.

Carry again, provide again the leaf.
Carry again the tusk and the horn
unshorn.
Carry again the fern, the fish, the frond and the fowl,
the golden toad and the pygmy owl,
revisit the scene
the place swallowtails fly
by way of acres of unexhausted sky
.

They sent out a boat.
Go very little breaker,
splinter the pack-ice and floes, nose
by way of the rafts and pads
of wrappers and bottles and nurdles and cans,
the bergs and atolls and islands and states
of plastic bags and micro-beads
and the forests of smoke.

Carry again, provide again the leaf,
provide again the river and sea
.

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