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JOSIE'S POEMS

Reflective/Discussion Poems

By Josie Whitehead

Starfish
Starfish

A MERMAN GRIEVES

By Josie Whitehead

Merman Grieves (A)

In summer, in a rocky cove,

     As waves beat on the shore,
A merman sits upon a rock

     And listens to its roar.


 Away from human life he sits,

     His life unlike our own.
Exploitation, power and wealth:

     To him, they’re things unknown.

He gazes at the distant town -

     A world where humans dwell.
It shelters not the quiet sea-folk

     Who live beneath the swell.


He’s seen the damage caused by man -

     His sea-world torn apart -
And the harm done to marine wildlife

     Must surely break his heart.

The oceans of our world, his home,

     Have had their hearts torn out.
Polluted, over-fished are they,

     By man, there is no doubt.


We fill our ocean beds with waste -

     With plastics and with oil.
The home wherein marine life lives

     It seems mankind must spoil.

The coral reefs within his world

     Now die beneath the waves.
Their brightly coloured fish have gone;

      The sandy bed, their graves.


They slaughter sharks, rip off their fins,

     To make their shark-fin soup.
To deeds like this, the quiet merfolk

     Would never ever stoop.

Huge nets now trawl his ocean home

      To gather all beneath  
And a world, completely ruined by man,

      Is what mankind bequeaths.


In summer, in a sheltered cove,

     The merman sits and grieves
And Planet Earth cries out in pain,

      Its heart ripped out by thieves.


Copyright on all my poems

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