This extract is from my dystopian novella 'Zero One Zero Two'. In this short hallucinogenic story, the forward narrative about a 200 year old woman and the end of life on earth following environmental destruction, is in prose and the reflective pieces remembering earth are in contemporary poetry.

This particular piece was also published in the 2021 anthology 'Summer Anywhere' by Dreich books. Enjoy.
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Does the sun still shine
Do rivers still dance
Do breezes caress the trees
Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere
Do flowers still flirt with bees

Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears
Does the Okavango delta still wash with Africa’s tears

Do elephant bones lie bleached and broken
Are shorelines kissed by the sea
Are dead cities shadowed with ghosts and regret
The great whales just a memory
Is there a footprint left by me

Does a white moon glow where nobody sees
Could cathedral sunsets still bring me to my knees

Does the kestrel cruise with a predator’s grace
While a vole marks his shadow, beware
Are the turrets and towers toppled and gone
Are the Great Plains stripped and bare
Is there anything there

Does rippling heat flatten the desert dust
Where scorpions arch and cacti pose and camels have wanderlust

Are mountains still dappled by giddy cloud
Is my memory only a dusty store
Pale pretty pictures of paradise
Images of things that are no more
An empty room without a door

Our plundering and ravaging bore malformed fruit
Are the oceans and skies forlorn are forests blind and mute

Or

Does the sun still shine
Do rivers still dance
Do breezes caress the trees
Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere
Do flowers still flirt with bees

Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears
Does the Okavango delta still wash with Africa’s tears