AFTERWARDS

  
 
   
And yes, afterwards    
Perhaps there shall be what the humans once called, “Weeds”    
Yet pretty in the ruins    
Green urgent shoots, they do not know they were once called, “Ugly”    
There may one day be trees    
All over the World, surviving    
Covering the scars. Giving out oxygen for what remains.    
So much lives on through the radiation    
Yet still, many species have been cruelly mutated    
But lichens? Yes, beautiful lichens will survive,    
Afterwards    
   
The United States of America, Lecanora, The United Kingdom, Lepraria, Israel, Xanthoria, Russia, Parmelia, France, Physcia, China, Hypogymnia    
   
The unquestioning masses are silent now for ever. No longer worried by doubts.    
The believers are in their heaven - if it exists    
And the Politicians have fought their war to the best of their abilities    
But, the cost    
 
 
[13/11/2016: this was performed – with other anti-war poems - at Alternative Remembrance Day event in London. Very moving event. Event organised by Peace Pledge Union.
May 2018, was read online by World Poetry magazine]  
January 2022, published in Dove Tales anthology, Mourning our planet?