Snapped Spire #poetry #earthweal

I see a church spire fall to earth
as if God’s hand had snapped it off
and cast it down, admonishing:
‘You fools! Look where you’re heading:
I gave you planetary abundance, 
Paradise lay at your feet
yet you chose greed,
consumers freed
to make Hell out of Heaven.’

© 2022 experimentsinfiction.com. All Rights Reserved.

Written for earthweal

Yesterday, Storm Eunice ravaged parts of the UK, bringing down the spire of St Thomas’s Church in Wells, Somerset. The Anthropocene signalling continues, and most of the time we choose to ignore it, until something particularly dramatic like this happens. Then we gasp for a few seconds in horrified awe, before turning back to whatever we were doing and continuing with our lives. Is there anything else we can do at this stage? I’m not sure, but I think we really are damned if we fail to acknowledge our part in all of this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-somerset-60434329

Sharing with earthweal’s Open Link Weekend #106.

55 thoughts on “Snapped Spire #poetry #earthweal

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  1. Fools indeed — behaving as if we all secretly hold the keys to the other reality where only a few can enter. Which is where exactly?! SMH.
    I’m sorry to hear what the storm brought. Hope you were spared
    (Though none of us are spared when we’re losing the battle that we never should have seen come to be.
    Hell in Heaven!
    Your words touch me. Thanks for sharing.
    Still, we continue trying to bring awareness. Bless you. xoxo

  2. We can only expect more of these. In Bomy, in northern France, the church spire needed replacing because the old timbers had rotted. The whole village turned out to watch them crane into place a custom-built oak replacement frame weighing several tons. It was an amazing sight. I have some photos somewhere, but can’t find them or I would have attached one. 🙂

      1. Indeed. It was a very close-knit community anyway, but it was lovely to see the whole village sharing a very special moment.

  3. Ingrid, you have written a very powerful verse about how we ignore signals, we pretend all is well and keep on causing situations for untold damage.
    I am sorry about the devastation caused by Storm Eunice.

  4. I live in a flooding US state where most of its wealth is accumulated on submerging shores and a far-right Republican who stumps on messages of “choice” and “freedom” while behind the scenes silently engages the reality of climate change. It’s a specie of madness akin to business as usual after such a storm in the UK yesterday. The fundamental messages of a radical foundational shift away from fossil-fuel culture will not go away, and the resistance to that change becomes uglier and blacker and more insane. So we go. What is the poetry of that, I wonder. Another specie of madness, I suppose. Looking forward to your earthweal challenge next week.

  5. We certainly have made a mess of this beautiful planet. I hope you and yours were safe. We had strong winds yesterday, too, but nothing like that! Thank you for including the link.

  6. I agree with your words, very well said Ingrid. I hope and pray this terrible storm passes and leaves, it has already caused too many sorrows. All the best and my greetings from Spain.
    Francis

  7. Yesterday was a bit scary. I thought our tree was going to snap. The fence was rocking and we could hear stuff falling down the chimney. I think we have to adapt as best we can really. It’s just going to get worse isn’t it.

      1. On the other hand this morning we have aquired a big blue tarpaulin sheet, hanging on the bushes at the bottom of the garden. God knows where it came from…

  8. Very well said, Ingrid! You are a gifted writer ! Our desire is to educate people to respect and cherish our beautiful planet. It is very difficult with the economic interests and the indolence of politicians.

  9. For a so called Christian nation always on the lookout for dark omens, we are pretty blind. But of course who wants to take responsibility for their own Fall?

  10. Yes. True words. Humanity has not evolved to our higher natures, sadly. Quite the opposite. It is hard to know as much as we know. Those who dont believe are more fortunate, though completely misguided.

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