Ode to Aurora - an Arctic Roar poem

Posted by Claire Donner — 3 September 2015 at 10:01am - Comments

Yesterday, 64 activists, Emma Thompson and First Nations activists and artist Audrey Siegl were outside Shell's London HQ with Aurora, the giant polar bear puppet, to protest Shell's Artcic oil drilling. You can find out more at www.savethearctic.org/ArcticRoar.

Hannah Boustred was one of 6 activists who chained themselves to Aurora to protect her throughout the day and night. Last night as the sun went down on day one of the protest, Hannah composed this poem, an Ode to Aurora.


Ice glass panes
The crackled roar ricochets off concrete bergs
Piercing gusts freeze through bones,
Sweep across stark slabs
Cold and grey
An expanse of tarmac tundra,
I nestle in
Her musty leather cradling
My aching body now part of her
We beat as one
We shudder, stir
She that voices all my fears
Awed mother
Proud in steel and clad in passion by the tonne
She who stands till it is done

In sweat and punk
The metal clunk, she crawled through grunt and strain
At dawn to march come wind or rain

Is it the feral whip of London winds that sting my ears?
Or is it the scream of Arctic bears?
A death more black and thick
Than tar, in rivers 'neath the brick,
The mortar, boring down
In whorls of icey water

We arrive, a smokey borealis
Burns our eyes
Greets us with familiar sights
The southern lights

And now as daylight wanes
The masses stare
The towering bear
To strummed harp I now reflect,
A cub upon her shoulder
Will her offspring e're grow older?
My human siblings bolder?

I turn north, to her for strength to stride
To stay at her side and to reject
To douse greed and swallow pride
To stand with those who object.
To be the bite of her claws
The fight in those majestic jaws,

Be solid, I tell myself
Steel against cold
Stone resolve
Remain my rock, I implore her
And so stay I and my aurora

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