Jogging uphill
during the first week
of Spring I pick a scene
for you:
native frangipani,
nasturtiums, no, freesias
out of verge-grass thick
with honey;
bees worry
fireweed left behind
by a lawnmower just
gone.
This very
hour I learned
of Jacob Boehme’s approach
to God
and hear
my mother’s voice.
she has just washed
her hair
in the laundry
sink having spent
all her life in the
desert.
About the Poem
Climate Change policy and theory is confusing to me. It seems obvious that humans have some impact on their surroundings and also that the surroundings have some impact on humans. It also seems obvious that climates have always changed and that we have very little impact on any atmospheric or weather conditions. The models for projection are all a bit panic-inducing and so complex that they remind of a philosophy class. I was thinking about all of this, on this, the first week of Spring, in Australia.
I considered, in this poem, the way that a mother is changed and is also unchanged by their children. The child is always loved and the mother is always cherished but there are different seasons in the relationship. In addition, the roles of the masculine and feminine have shifted and transformed considerably in the last twenty or so years. I wonder if our panic about climate change includes a panicked response to the inner life, perhaps a fear of letting go, knowing that we are not able to control everything as any mother knows when their children head out into the world without them. It could be that the intensity of change in traditionally stable areas has destabilised our psyches. This poem is a meditation on some of these ideas.
About the Author
Glenn McPherson is a Sydney-based poet. He has been widely published in Australian Journals and Anthologies. In 2022, he featured in the Newcastle and ACU Poetry Prize Anthology, and was published in the Best of Australian Poetry 2022. In 2023, he was a finalist in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Competition, shortlisted for the South Coast Writers Poetry Prize; published in Topical Poetry Journal, and InDaily/Poets Corner.