Awen Online Issue 4


AWEN ONLINE ISSUE FOUR: WILDLIFE


                     Butterfly
                         By Tracy Patrick 
Once I saw a rare species of butterfly :

A flutter of gold and indigo,
The stroke of air against skin.
I could almost touch the translucent wings,

Soaring on a soft breeze,
It pirouetted
Our of reach.

These moments
Are fleeting as dreams.



         To The Goddess Asia 
                       By Tracy Patrick 
Sleeping light awake.
A tiger's on the mountain
Out in the open
Chased from his grassy cover.
The den has been raided
Mother, cubs shot.
He senses eyes
Triggers poised in ambush.
Awake, Asia
Save you children
From the vanity
Of the human race.
Who will hear the last roar
Of the last tiger?

                      End Of The Wilderness 
                                            By DJ Tyrer
He had an interesting thesis :  that the wilderness was dead
That it had vanished and we hadn't really noticed
A few thousand years ago nearly the whole world was wild
Just a few huts and scratched furrows barely noticeable
A few centuries ago there was still wilderness in Europe
But it was exception no longer norm but exotic
Now even that is gone the jungles tamed and explored
Turned into amusement parks for obese Americans
Barely any corners remain untouched or unseen
The whole world has been given over to the greyness of man...

But then I asked :  what about beneath our feet
And in the cracks in the pavements and roads
What about the rats and the 'roaches scuttling
What about plants colonising our concrete jungle
How can you say that the wilderness is truly dead
When it is there waiting to burst forth yet again
?



                          Wildlife 
                           By Aeronwy Dafies 
There is wildlife all around, barely hidden away at all
From the ants crawling through the long long grass
To the spider hiding the cracks of the garden wall.
The birds up above flying through the air in stately pass
And the fish in the waters swimming furtively to and fro.
Then there are the creatures below the ground and in the far off sea
More wildlife than ever I could understand or know.
And there are the creatures just like you and me...


                                 Butterfly Warriors 
                                                 By Nick Armbrister 
Soft beat of wings fluttering over the landscape turning and gliding being flown by
beings of light, these small soft butterflies are angelic warriors of nature.
Rolling and turning in the beat of an eye on to their opponent's tail. Who their
opponents are can only be guessed at but I have heard that devil insects hate the
butterflies; they're beetles and wasps.
If you see a black and scarlet butterfly with a circle of white on its back, a butterfly
warrior on its mission of eternal battle between the forces of light and dark.
  



                                       The Birds
                                                 By Aeronwy Dafies 
The birds flocking in the sky like dark clouds
Ignoring the presence of man below their flight
Creating a chirruping cacophony now
To warn of the approach of dark night
They swarm from tree to roof-top to wire and back again
Like a single being moving as one to left and right
There is something pure and unsullied
The birds are such a glorious sight!