Poem 26 Hope for the Forests of Hope.

Hope for the Future, Forests of Hope.
BirdLife International joins 20 leading conservation groups – the ‘WC20’ ahead of this weekend’s G20 Leaders’ Summit to warn that COVID-19 highlights need for urgent action – and urge that investing in nature costs a fraction of pandemic response, while driving green jobs and tackling climate change.

Bird Life International supports ‘Forests for Hope which you can read about on their website and support through my sponsorship challenge. I hope by the time I post this that the G20 will actively support the work needed to restore our devastated natural world as we are all suffering from this destruction of ecosystems.

I have based my 26th and final poem on one I wrote for an exhibition of my friend Ruth Koenigsberger’s paintings last year. Another friend translated it into Spanish. Many people seemed to identify with that special feeling when we get a good glimpse of a wild animal. Her painting of the young owl was the poster for the exhibition. Next year we hope to have another exhibition as her bird paintings have taken full flight into a glory of imagination and colour.

Poem 26 is 26 words from this poem in English, folllowing with 26 lines for many of the creatures I have missed out. ( The amount of lines is a challenge with the new block editor, how can it be so clumsy?)

Wild Witness

I see you on my terrace;

You see me see you.

Your eyes hold onto mine.

You move through the trees of my life,

Leaves fall.

Our Navasola Forest of Hope

Twice now a female wild boar has looked me in the eye.

Both shortsighted but her sense of smell much better than mine.

She moves on,with her tribe following, to a safer distance.

The wild deer like the badger, the fox and the mongoose, leave their scatological deposits.

A reminder that this is their home here.

The genet too used our old roof as a skyscraper latrine.

While bats and owls went bump in the night to stoke our dreams with fur and feathers.

Birds hide away from us but woodpecker feathers lay lifeless on the ground.

Golden Orioles sing in the tall alders and willows above

Ruth’s orchard where pen, paint and patterns create smiles.

A buzzard or a booted eagle hovers.

Bullfinches and hoopoes pass by for weekend retreats.

Butterflies varied in their passions delight us with a feast of fritillaries, festoons and swooning swallowtails.

Insect life seems happy buzzing, clicking, whirring. There are no nasty chemicals nearby. .

Beetles abound from rotting tree trunks but we look out for one that likes our linseed protected timber roof.

Paper wasp nests hide in the eaves, hornets hang around near the ivy on an old oak. Wasp like waists to die for.

Dragonflies often hover near the porch ready to catch the large flying ants.

Our favourite porch pets are the regular reptile visits of

Psammodromus, the white gecko and the lizard of jewels.

Sometimes we find fire salamanders and the ladderback snake under old tiles and in wood piles.

We see so much life from the porch, the window and on quiet walks.

All imprints on our being.

But who are we on theirs?

As they look and stare, even glare at the imposition of our being on their path,

I hope they will dare to pass by our way,

Forever.

My Challenge
I am not by nature a fundraiser but I felt compelled as the lockdown began and many fund raising events couldn’t take place to make mine a poetry marathon. There was the 2.6 challenge for charities affected by the London Marathon not taking place. So I decided for my sins to write 26 poems, some with 26 words and some with 26 lines. Unfortunately the 2.6 fund raising page was time limited and the page no longer works. It has taken me 8 months to get to my finishing line.
Thank you to all those who have sponsored me for the RSPB 2.6 challenge page and for others who have begun to sponsor BirdLife International.
I strongly believe that if we could begin to restore nature and change our relationship from exploitation of the natural world to a sustainable and equitable future there will be hope that we can continue to live in a nature rich world that is much healthier and happier.
This weekend BirdLife International which begun in 1922 for conservation of birds across boundaries has coordinated with other nature organisations to present the urgent need to stop the destruction and speed up restoration of our natural world at the G20.

BirdLife International helped form Wildlife Conservation 20, or WC20, uniting 20 of the most prominent conservation NGOs at the forefront of protecting wildlife and ecosystems.
Patricia Zurita, BirdLife International’s CEO, said: “COVID-19 is a wake up call to everyone on this planet. Now is the moment when we must value and invest in conservation by developing sustainable nature-based economic stimulus packages. BirdLife believes access to a healthy planet should be a universal human right and this urgent call complements our 1planet1right.org campaign to make this so.
Otherwise, the natural world, on which we all rely, will not be able to protect us and safeguard our current and long-term well-being. Investing the recovery funds in nature will protect not only our economies but also our health.”
On this 21 and 22 November in Riyadh, as the G20 meet, they must step up to the plate to address this crisis.”

If you wish to help me finish my challenge the link for my fundraising page is below.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/georgina-wright7

Poem 25. Writing Words For Weasels.

Head of Comadrito by Ruth Koenisberger

Winter is here and I am now on Poem 25 and in another lockdown, albeit now in the U.K. There have been too many distractions, some wonderful like cuddles with a new baby and dinosaur games with a three year old. Others have been nail biting as coronavirus cases rise here and the  American Election creates a cliff hanger. When will it all be over? We need courage and patience to know ‘it’ will all take its own time.

This poem is about weasels because a weasel is one of my main characters in The Call of the Wild Valley. But the poem touches on how we use animals to describe human characteristics and often to the detriment of the animal. Why do wolves have to be bad when their social relationships are supportive and for the good of the whole pack. Why do we have the phrase ‘weasel words’? Usage appears to go back to Shakespeare where weasels were thought to suck out the egg yolk from a shell.

‘I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs’ As You Like It 1600.

However it may be thanks to Theodore Roosevelt in 1916 who used the words for the ability of humans to obscure meaning or fail to take responsibility with clarity and honesty in communicating. ‘one of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use weasel words; when one weasel word is used after another there is nothing left’. ( With thanks to Wikipedia and I trust verified)

I hope clarity can return to communication and weasels can be appreciated for their role in nature and ability to tackle rats.

Writing Words for Weasels

Weasels do not have those words

That deceive with tricks and lies

If weasels really did speak out

Would their words be heard

Above the human need to shout

About nowt, while a bird flies

Through a sky of sighs.

In creating my novel about the lives of different species in the animal and plant kingdoms of Navaselva, a weasel became one of the main characters. In many ways after I created the first chapter and a journey narrative I felt the novel began to write itself. The characters, the places, and the challenges faced seemed to fall into place. However, one aspect of my way of writing was to avoid speech, I did not want talking animals that would be too like humans. But I needed characters with personality and feelings.

Comadreya is the word for weasel in Spanish. I named the weasel this but then changed it to Comadrito when Ruth was drawing him. She wanted a more engaging name. At first I wrote with some distance from the character and in 3rd person omniscient ( this now seems to be an old fashioned style, if an all knowing narrative perspective). I now realise the need to engage the reader by being more in the point of view of one character.

The beginning idea came from a story told by our yoga teacher Juanjo. I struggled to understand the Spanish but this was about someone seeing a bird of prey lift up a weasel in its talons but then drop the weasel fairly soon after, possibly as the weasel bit the bird’s feet.

Weasels are known for their sharp teeth and ability to kill all kinds of prey. Much later after creating my bird/ weasel encounter  I  saw the iconic photo of a weasel on the back of a woodpecker. It seems both survived the encounter but the weasel was trying to kill the bird.

The smallest weasels, Mustela nivalis are very light, about 50 grams but are known for their need to eat a good percentage of their body weight every day. Hence their ability to tackle a wide variety of prey from small rodents to rabbits and large birds.They could be seen as opportunists, sharp, able to act quickly and fearless.

The first chapter of my novel begins with a weasel waiting on a rock to go on a journey of discovery. One of my two encounters with tiny weasels at Navasola was looking out of the front door and seeing a weasel on the rock by the olive tree. It seemed to look back at me but in its mouth was a mouse. I had to ponder the possibility that a mouse that I had recently released from being trapped in a large box in the house, had been delivered, tired and intimidated by its encounter with me, into the sharp teeth of the weasel.

These are some of the reasons I chose a weasel, a small enough animal to travel on the back of a large bird, an animal that can hide easily, but able to slip in an out of many different places in a quest for knowledge about a rapidly changing planet. Knowledge that can be shared to help all species adapt and survive. One of the main themes of the novel is facing challenges through cooperation and coexistence.

I have one more poem to go and it is ready as it is one I wrote for my artist friend Ruth Konigsberger’s exhibition a year ago. It has also been translated into Spanish and I hope to work on some of these poems and translate some into Spanish as they are very much about the flora and fauna of the Sierra Aracena.

I will also do a final fundraising on that post because the one I started at the beginning was time limited and closely connected to the London Marathon and losses that charities are facing in this pandemic.