Poetry for the Environment - Dialogue Between the Body and the Soul
Image from RSA
There have been numerous popular films and books about the environment and now two poets are sharing their views. One lives in England and the other in Australia, and both decided to stop flying internationally for environmental reasons.
Instead of meeting personally, Melanie Challenger and John Kinsella will be publishing an exchange of poems on the subject of their thoughts on air travel. The idea is that "great poetry can take us to new places without any increase in carbon footprints." The result is a multi-part work, Dialogue between the body and the soul. The first, by Kinsella, is up. Get inspired after the fold. 
Image by allposters.co.uk
The first poem, Opening, by John Kinsella. Kinsella is the author of more than forty books of poetry, prose, and criticism. He is Adjunct Professor to Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, where he is a Principal of the Landscape and Language Centre, and a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia.
Body
The walk between towns is three daysat a fair pace — the legs scissor, arms counterweight. In the heat I fashion a hat out of dustand the brim wavers, miragedrawn out of stone and scrub.
Soul
The high life makes strife with the quickening map — I lapse into lakes, mountains, plains,all are a glimpse ravelled into one impression as a bird's eye warms in its socket.
Body
I see you pass over and hear youlater — your essence a pair of streamers dissipating; does sleep sleep up there?Do dreams dream of themselvesat the mercy of meal breaks?
Soul
Your feet don't touch the ground but you thinkabout a new pair of boots — brokenin, comfortable. The ageing of the slow, of the too closely observed, the insects in your sleep.
Body
Time changes only as you changeand down here even flesh is more constant — but each step is your mile, and each mile is a mile lessfor the towns I move betweenand all I see, hear, touch and taste.
Soul
But by your own admission I am the essence, and I mustget where I am going fast — eternalI need to keep busy, keep getting the job done. I am pressure. I am air breathed over and over.
