BBC Words First | Timotei Cobeanu

In Spring 2022, Timotei took part in Words First, a BBC / Young Identity poetry scheme developing new poems for performance with writers and industry mentors including Inua Ellams and Ellie Land among others. As part of the project, the writers explored writing on the theme of the climate crisis.

Scroll down to read Timotei's poem 'The Girl Who Was Terra'.

The Girl Who Was Terra

by Timotei Cobeanu

54.4°C

death valley

16 8 ’20

summertime

hailing Hades.

summer Junes by

breathless

dry swallowing

our broken vows

as we
sing in our cars

to our ♥’ed

Spotify jams.

.

on the other side of the world,
far away,
on a mystical island,
on a beach
where the stars still meet with the sea,

carbon free,

Terra lies

wide awake,

eyeliner fading,

wide-eyes at the ocean,

at the days that are

yet to come,

gazing.

i call out her name.

'Terra' ‘Ama!’ ‘Lover!’

but she snaps,

,,,PTSD from all the promises

her older babes
boiled to death
like Orthodox Easter eggs.

~ you are not my lover ~

and she’s right. i’m not.

trust issues make sense. wildfires make sense. droughts make sense.

she’s thirsty for something or someone to love her.

but yeah, i still buy meat from tesco sometimes i still buy meat from tesco i still eat fish sometimes

i still use plastic after i sign petitions to ban it i still regret not contributing to science.

if only i could scatter the curse of mankind

to surround her highest peaks
with Ānanda’s bliss.

she whispers ~ you wish ~.

~ i can’t sleep ~ she says

~ i can’t breathe, or be sleeping no longer ~

time is a painful ocean
we pass it by drilling in.
we act like it’s just a scene from ‘the end of time’,

but for her

we are

whipping her paradise

jawline
with radioactive interest.

smells like survival of the richest

puppets, playing for time

as the hot cold blows

plastic pine trees
on Christmas eyelids.

but i believe...

things can change i believe
in the power of prayer and oceans i believe

we are not a burden i believe
in divine in the fairy-tale kiss i believe
we can come back to life, back to love

like the children i believe

we once were.

on the other side of the world,

a buddhist man burns himself to death on Earth Day.

the flames of his body
so high,
soul seeking stillness in the simmering mountains

it leaves behind
in its sacrifice.

no more weeping, no more sleeping.

T E R R A is W E E P I N G

on the fiery fields, the suffocated shore

W E E P I N G:
‘How many bruises more

?’

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