| we need to go back down onto our knees and crawl into the dark. We need to bow our heads into the silence of shame and humbly re-enter the Tenebrae. We need to wipe a red cross of blood sacrifice onto the door-frame of each home and pray for Passover – again, before it’s too late and only some get a place on the Ark.We cut the last Olive tree down without permission or apology neither for wood nor fuel, but just because we could. We set the ice caps on fire melting the waters. We forced the north and south poles out of balance. We drowned the deserts and watched as the last male White Rhino died before our very eyes – live on Facebook – and for all of our science and technology there was nothing we could do.We infected seeds and plants on purpose with chemicals. We genetically modified foods and force-fed wheat to captive geese till their livers exploded and then we turned them into cheap pâté that we sold on Amazon Prime. We cut the beaks and claws off chickens to keep them safe from themselves and from each other in cages of thousands as we bread them to grow fat without feathers to die for the market. We stopped going out to shop long before the politicians it doesn’t matter either – if you yourself get sick or even |
| Fergus Hogan lives and works in Waterford where he lectures full-time in narrative family therapy at WIT. His poems have been published in the Irish Times and various anthologies. His first chapbook of poems, Bittern Cry, was published in November 2019. His novel The Wisdom of Fionn, is a retelling of the old Irish tale with a focus on Celtic Spirituality and boy’s and men’s lives and relationships. It is being serialised, for free, each day of this stay at home time – on his publishers Facebook page Book Hub Publishing. |
Beautifully said Fergus.
I met you a couple of years ago in Stradbally at my first cousin Mary Power Kelly’s book opening.
Blessings galore to you and all your family and friends, all the way from Los Angeles.