Category Archives: ecology

June 4, 2022 · 3:26 pm

In The Betweenness – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Skippy Rocks, Cape Leeuwin, one of my favourite places.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

In The Betweenness

In the betweenness of sea and shore
there was an ear that listened as a door,
to all that ebbed and flowed along the way,
the ins and outs of the long trodden bay.

In the edgeness of tree and plain,
there was a forest tree loving rain,
miming philosophies of significance,
drawing attention to her hopeful dance.

In the drop between peak and valley
lies a cave of eyes looking to rally,
the emergence of a long held dream,
many answers to fateful anthropocene.

In the imperceptible gap between fear and love,
swims a peaceful olive branch bearing dove,
who arcs across the world rather than fly,
casting spells of healing for us to ply.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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May 26, 2022 · 4:22 pm

Such An Interesting Question – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: anncapictures at pixabay.com

“When everything is connected to everything else, for better or for worse, everything matters.” Bruce Mau

Such An Interesting Question

Such an interesting question,
what is it that makes me different,
how am I seperate yet connected 
to all that lives and breathes,
have I even really thought about this,
and if I do, what difference would it 
make for the future of all things around me,
what could possibly change?


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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February 2, 2022 · 11:42 pm

Defining Moment – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image: from therugbygroup.sandler.com

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” Dante Alighieri 

Defining Moment

We are never so defined as by our crises,
the irruptions of pressure force change,
suddenly malaise transforms to purpose,
individualism rediscovers its malignancy.

The irruptions of pressure force change,
denial is the most useless safety helmet,
individualism rediscovers its malignancy,
slowly but surely we leave our cocoons.

Denial is the most useless safety helmet
while ignorance is the tightest kevlar,
slowly but surely we leave our cocoons,
the dividing line of transition now drawn.

While ignorance is the tightest kevlar,
suddenly malaise transforms to purpose,
the dividing line of transition now drawn,
we are never so defined as by our crises.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

Note: in this I am deeply influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum that the French were never so free as when Germany occupied France – meaning that it suddenly gave purpose, called forth identity and action.

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January 26, 2022 · 10:12 pm

Whose Time Has Come – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: From acmstravel.com a view of the Whanganui River, NZ which in 2012 was recognised in NZ law as a natural entity with legal rights equivalent to humans. This followed on from the first landmark case in 2008 in Ecuador when the Vilcabama River was protected by granting it rights at law.

“Nature cannot be seen solely as a resource to be owned, exploited and profited from.” Suzanne Benally

Whose Time Has Come

Global never thinks local,
only to its own lusted desires,
but among the suited ties of
the mean sx landing barges
comes the conscienced 
resistance of the locals, 
whose time has come to speak
of cousins as rivers and trees,
whose rights are sacred and
who now wait to sue the suits
off miners who would euthanase 
every breath of life in an irony
of futures doomed.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 21, 2022 · 10:49 pm

Someone, Something, Somewhere – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: by skitterphoto at pixabay.com

“All choices are fraught with peril, but inaction is the most perilous of all.” Frewin Jones

Someone, Something, Somewhere

Sitting with our eyes closed in a dark mediation,
we're not painting slogans,
not marching or gathering,
we haven't written much at all,
no rallying call lingers on our lips,
just sitting, waiting, hoping
that someone or something,
somewhere, will cause a spark,
meanwhile we're
sitting with our eyes closed in a dark meditation.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 19, 2022 · 11:38 pm

Writ Large – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: from gcg.net.au asbestos fibres.

“We can’t go on as we have been.” Sir David Attenborough 

Writ Large

Of thalidomide and asbestos,
those roman pipes of lead,
benzine to carbon making
nearly everything so dead,
atomic wet-dreams,
what a gas, or just a 
fracking nuisance and the last,
with plastic sands and bubble
wrapped whales carrying tales
of wasted trees on which the lies
we subscribed are writ large.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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January 6, 2022 · 1:47 am

Diving Still – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: alchetron.com – a swimmer (or diving) beetle. We have a swimmer beetle in our pond.

“One of the huge imbalances of life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinary satisfying way of living.” Wayne Dyer 

Diving Still

I thought she could see me,
the reason she darted away,
but no, she came back to the
surface and darted away once 
more to the deeps of the pond,
looking for morsels in her 
trip along this biosphere,
up and down all day long,
smooth glides fast and slow,
and when at eve I retired I 
wondered if she was diving still.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
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November 6, 2021 · 2:51 pm

What Comes Next? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: images.dailykos.com

“Any system that values profit over human life is a very dangerous one indeed.” Suzy Kassem 

What Comes Next?

Who welcomes the stranger at their door,
how sacred is this finite threshold of
interwoven beliefs hanging so thinly,
a bulwark against the damp demise,
reinforcing  our carefully curated fantasy,
which, like a paper bag in the rain,
causes us to dare consider its collapse 
into someone's reality, an insecure
subjectivity we might cling to as if
to a child eagerly seeking a parent 
in a sea of discordant confusion, 
something might make sense.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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October 12, 2021 · 2:37 pm

Fierce Beauty – prose by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Mish is hosting Posery with an invitation to using a line form TS Eliot’s poem ‘The Waste Land.’

dVerse Poets – Prosery – The Waste Land

The line offered and which must be included is: “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”

Photo: an example of eremophila taken at Niagara near Kookynie.

“According to ancient mythology, trees link the earth to the sky. In this respect trees link humans to another world.” Richard Allen

Fierce Beauty

The eastern goldfields suffer only the strong or determined living in the extremities across these vast open plains of mostly dry laterite and also quartz, granite and sandstone outcrops populated by shy fauna and rugged flora. The summer is merciless, the winter winds penetrate layers. The rainfall is pitiful, the reason the state government commissioned the grand and ambitious Goldfields Water Supply Scheme in 1896.

When the rains do come they seem to evaporate before they touch the surface soil, and it is a wonder that anything could grow in such a place. Which raises the question, what are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Dozens in fact, varieties of eucalyptus, acacia, eremophila, grevillea, and callistemon tenaciously hang on out here where humans wilt. When the sun is fierce, the soil unforgiving, the trees are beautifully fiercer.

Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon

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July 28, 2021 · 2:51 pm

Sitting With Nature – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Hakea trifurcata found along Lesmurdie Brook, if you’re not taking time and looking you will miss it.

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature ….” Rachel Carson

Sitting With Nature

To sit
is to still, to see, to be
settled in connection
with all that is present,
feeling the space before you
as you reach out and touch
with all your senses wide open.

To sit
is to still, to see, to be
accepted in this moment
by all that desires to be
present to to you in your
quiet acceptance of the
generosity of this shared space 

To sit
is to still, to see, to
become part of all that is,
and return to your centre,
slowing down and listening in 
to the rhythms of life, that you 
might know yourself for the first time.


Copyright 2021 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®

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