Birthday Poem

It is June and the foxgloves are in bloom.
In two days it shall be my birthday.

Every time I go to grab my pen
I find my phone there instead and
at this rate I shall never finish
Piano Concerto No.1046 but at least I
will have read every rolling update
The Guardian have put out in the last five years.
That will be an achievement to tell the
Grandchildren about at least:

‘What did you do when the world was
on the brink of climate wars pa-pa?’

‘Oh not much really, but I was terribly
informed about the whole thing.’

At least I’ll have known what fish tasted like,
I’ll think, as we huddle together on the summit
of Swirl How. Our fingers inked with the juice
of the last remaining berries, watching
the lifeless ocean churn and boil ever closer.

It is June and the foxgloves are in bloom.
It is 2019 and in two days it shall be my birthday.

It is June and the foxgloves are in bloom.
It is 2019 and in two weeks it will be 45°C in Southern France.

It is June and the foxgloves are in bloom.
It is 2019 and in thirty years time all the bees will be dead. Oh well.

It is June and the foxgloves are in bloom.
Isn’t the colour purple delightful in nature?
In two days’ time it shall be my birthday.

Elden Morrow is an English with Creative Writing graduate from the University of Birmingham. He loves the poetry of Frank O’Hara and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and is particularly interested in shifting tones and dialects in poetry