Michael Whelan has a whole series of paintings called “The End of Nature” in his galleries. These are some of my most favourite paintings of his — partly because I love the green landscapes he paints and partly because I think humanity is a blight upon this world and think that we’ll continue to destroy all that’s beautiful and pure on the planet till it’s too late.
So when I wanted to pick an image from the End of Nature series for a poem, I had a lot of choices. He has several paintings with misty landscapes and green grass dotted with flowers that I just love looking at. And maybe one of them would have been a better choice if I wanted something lovely to look at…
But the mood I was in, I wanted something darker. Something which hinted at the gathering storm. And “Erosion” was perfect for that.
I originally meant to go a different direction with this poem and called it “Seeker”, because it was going to be about seeking the light in darkness. But as often happens with my poems, the poem had a different direction in mind 🙂 And I ended up with “Fragility”…
Fragility
by Fahim FarookSeeking the light in a world of twilight,
As the storm gathers, destruction the highlight.
No escape, no succour, no other being within sight,
No one to turn to with the will to aid, or the might.A ragged landscape worn away,
Trying to keep annihilation at bay,
No trees, no life, no children at play,
Not a world where one would want to stay.It might seem like an idle thought,
No such world exists, with danger fraught.
You dismiss the mere existence of the thought
And go on with life, doing what you ought.But give just a thought to the possibility,
That this imagined world could be reality,
If we do not realize nature’s fragility,
The world imagined won’t stay an improbability.
