This poem was inspired by all three pieces of art. You can see them here and read all the contributions to Paul’s ekphrastic challenge.

Earth-tangle
Inspired by all three paintings, by Jane Cornwell, John Law and Kerfe Roig

We tangle things with less artistry than nature,
the rights and the wrongs,
make humanity a moral question.

We twist genes and patterns to suit,
reject the unwanted, unfashionable,
regardless of species,

the earth is in chains drawn by fellow men
and the beasts we took from the plains
and caged in breeding pens,

sky is wired, plotted, satellite-droned,
watched, observed, tracked,
and the skeins are fewer every season.

Yet in the tangled wasteland
beneath the web of wires,
the cycles still turn blossom to berry,

and unobserved,
the small insignificant things
slip beneath the net.