Rae Howells | poetry & journalism



Much of Rae's work centres on the climate crisis, responding through nature poetry and eco poetry.





Moving Beyond COP - poetry of hopeful rebellion



Rae was invited to read in English and Welsh at the Moving Beyond climate change conference at Fforest, Ceredigion, in October 2022. She read a dying bee poem from her collection, The language of bees, as well as a brand new bilingual work about the conservation of the red kite in Wales.






The red kite is a wonderful emblem of hope against all odds, because it came so close to extinction, but survived. (Perhaps this is why it is often used as a symbol of the Welsh language too.)


Once as common a scavenger in British towns and cities as the crow and magpie, the kite came to be seen as vermin and fair game for persecution. In rural areas it was blamed for taking young lambs from farms, and so began a relentless campaign to reduce its numbers.


So successful was this persecution that by the late nineteenth century the red kite was extinct in England and Scotland, and only a handful of breeding pairs remained in remote areas of Wales. Its rarity then saw it targeted by egg collectors and taxidermists, pushing the species to the brink.



But in 1903 a group of landowners, farmers, conservationists and stewards came together and formed the Red Kite Committee, determined to save the red kite.


They defended the kites and their nesting locations, and the species was able to cling on for several decades, regaining a foothold.


Eventually realising the birds would not be able to recolonise their former territories without help, a reintroduction programme began in the late twentieth century. As a result there are now an estimated 10,000 red kites living in the UK today and the project is widely celebrated as the longest continuous conservation effort in history, and certainly one of the most successful.


However, red kites came extremely close to losing the fight.


DNA testing in the 1990s revealed that every bird surviving in Wales at that point was descended from a single breeding female, who probably lived in the 1930s. In other words, their survival came down to just one bird.


If we can learn anything from this as we look to tackle climate change, let it be - that small can win. Let it be that a single individual can make the difference. That just one heart can carry a flame, and a day can come when it lights ten thousand fires.


Fire, and uprising. This is also about place. Images of fire echo Wales's struggles as a nation, one of the first in the world to feel the effects of the industrial revolution and fight back against the terrible working conditions and destruction of nature that resulted. We are a nation of the furnace, of coal, steel, slate, iron, copper, of dragons, of smouldering rebellions, of surviving against the odds. Where today, red kites are rising.



Here are Rae's Moving Beyond poems in full:


Dying bee in a takeaway box (4)

Out of time


The earth hears her small note.


Carder bee sings to herself

drags the empty basket of herself –


a honey memory

stirs –


tiny crotchet of hope


and yet stops. She is out of time.


Her crochet-hook feet

are feeble on the drumskin of the path.

A rest. She cannot find her beat.


But the earth hears everything.

Her heart’s quiet fibrillations.

My children’s footbeats as they run to fetch a spoon.

The rustle of processed sucrose tipping out.

The violin-string of her small wings, reverberating.


from The language of bees (Parthian, 2022)


--

Barcud, ar dan


codai adar o’r ulw

maent yn codi, yn codi,

lan o bigau’r Cambria

maent yn codi


cannoedd o farcutiaid a’i adenydd ar dân

yn miwio’i adnabyddiaeth-tân

plu ar fflam

maent yn gwybod – mae yn ei leisiau:

daw tân yn ol yn fwy ffyrnig byth ar ol iddo bron ddiffodd


nawr ma adar yn fudlosgi,

yn codi’n fwg

yn y clwydi, yn y coed

adennydd ar dân,

yn codi, yn codi,

yn cynnau tanau coedwig

pigau ar fflam

maent yn codi, yn boeth, yn blu

maent yn danio’r bryn i sbarcs


coelsen yw pob wy yn y nyth

adar-gwres, adar cols

maent yn codi, yn codi

yn syfrdanu’r awyr, ar dawdd,

lampiau llachar wedi’i oleuo,

gwrthryfel ar thermalau

deg mil o fannau ar losg


a phob un wedi’i chynnau gan

sbarc un aderyn-fam

ar dawel fflam, glo yn ei iris, cochni yn y gwaed, dur yn ei chrafanau,

fflint yn ei phlu,

a chynnodd ei wrthryfel bychain ar bigyn wyllt Cymraeg,

roedd ganddi matsys yn lle esgyrn, roedd yn barod am y streic,

deg mil o fannau – deg mil o fannau!

a dim ond un peth y cymrodd:


aderyn

yn codi

yn codi

yn codi


--

Red kites, alight


birds are lifting from ash

they’re rising, they’re rising

out of the Cambrian mountains

they’re rising


hundreds of kites in flight, alight,

calling out their fire-ken

plumage in blazes

they know, they cry it from their throats:

fire burns back brighter after it’s almost gone out


and now birds are leaping up

going up in smoke

in the roosts, in the firs,

alight on the wing, setting forest fires

beaks in flames

they’re rising, hot and plumy,

they’re setting the sky to sparks


eggs in the nest are hot coals

feverbirds cinderbirds

they’re rising, they’re rising

shimmering in air, molten,

bright lanterns lit

an uprising on thermals

ten thousand beacons in flames


and each one kindled by

the spark of a single motherbird

quietly ablaze, coal eyed red blooded steel hooked

all along there was flint in her feathers

& she stoked her small rebellion on a wild Welsh peak

she was match-boned & ready to strike

ten thousand beacons – ten thousand beacons!


and all it took was one bird

rising,

rising,

rising


(c) Rae Howells, 2022

These poems cannot be reproduced without the express permission of the author.



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