If I were Prospero, I’d find a boat,
rotten with ragged sails and creaking mast.
I’d fill it with presidents & their cutthroats,
men, whose crimes for profit are unsurpassed.
I’d put them out to sea and make a storm,
let them roll around on deck and puke.
In cold and dark they’d see their world transform,
their fate at last to face violent rebuke.
They’d land on shores all slick with dirty oil,
stumble into forest fires, repent and cry
for all that they have witnessed and destroyed.
My power would be to open up their eyes
to green seas and azure vaulted skies.

Janet Harper is a teacher. She is currently Poet in Residence with Pear Necessities, an organic orchard in Kent.