I entered a poetry competition to win a week’s stay at the Pacuare Nature Reserve in Costa Rica and to become their Poet Laureate for a year and as you can see from the title, I did not win 🙂

The prompt was to write a poem of up to 100 lines on the subject of wildlife or the boundaries between the human and the natural.

This was my entry.

The elegance of things

The elegance of things
touching atmospheres of all

The beauty of mist
rising in droplets of beginnings

The feelings one feels
upon seeing within her turmoils
the calm of patient resilience

The elegance of things
growing strength from weakness

The simplicity of knowing
how we became such things as we are

The feelings one feels
upon reaching inside nature’s heart
to feel her beats of life

The elegance of things
sun rising and sun setting

The structure of shadows
stretching to build new horizons

The feelings one feels
upon hearing the songs of her children
as they are born, as they die

The elegance of things
freeing the auras to shine

The empathy of humanity
slowly turning the pages of reason

The feelings one feels
upon breathing her scent of morning
as she flowers her beauty

The elegance of things
growing in the darkness

The chaos of time
sending ripples into eternity

The feelings one feels
upon imagining her hidden smile
waiting to ignite

The elegance of things
beautifying within and without

The wild life of nature
erupting with free spirits of peace

The feelings one feels
upon hearing the songs of her children
as they die, as they are born

~

As a leaf falls
know this Earth is not ours