{"id":15727,"date":"2024-11-15T15:52:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T15:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15727"},"modified":"2025-02-24T11:13:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T11:13:01","slug":"survivors-guilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/blog\/survivors-guilt\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivors&#8217; Guilt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-by-kay-anderson\"><span id=\"by-luke-western\"><em>by Luke Western<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-winner-puretravel-writing-competition-2024\"><span id=\"winner-stories-for-survival-writing-competition-2024\">Winner \u2013 Stories for Survival Writing Competition 2024<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;A really stunning piece of writing, with a stark message that is all the more powerful for Luke\u2019s deceptively simple and playful language. Remarkable. That final haunting \u2018our hands on the hilt\u2019 will stay with me.&#8221; Jeremy Lazell, Head Judge<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s only a hop, from tock to tick, a flick;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>from the last to the past is equally quick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hope on the edge, pales to hoped,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>pale dreams on the brink, slink, failed, to dreamt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the blink of an eye, smiles shrink to smiled,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>and the shine in that eye, shies to shone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once one, drops to none, belief is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When belief has passed, there is no believe,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>just believed, a door to the past,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>and all we adore, will have been adored,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>the song in the air mute now, warnings ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there is no song, sing is sang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the sky is empty, and so is the sea,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>we\u2019ve left it too late &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>food for thought, not for your plate,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>savour your meal, as eat staves to ate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We need to slow down, swallow our pride,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>before swim sinks to swam, lost in the tide,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>or run crawls to ran, with nowhere to hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before fall folds to fell, with full forests felled,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>trunks cut to wood, habitats expelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before stride slides to strode, dive falls to dove,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>drive stalls to drove, at the end road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take a deep breath, before breathe becomes breathed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gasp as we mourn the trees and their leaves,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>and the thistle and thorn, and the weeds that we weed,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>and the soil we spray to keep them away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When nothing is new, grow shifts to grew,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>no wings in the air, no eggs in the sand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>no legs in the hills, life lost on land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If life is lost, then live will be lived,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>and what we love, we\u2019ll lose to loved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We willingly watch our wild world wilt,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>weighing the weight of survivors&#8217; guilt,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>fueling the flames of the fire we built,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>solely to blame, our hands on the hilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image: Unsplash, Matt Howard<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To watch the film, with Survivors&#8217; Guilt narrated by Stephen Fry please <a href=\"https:\/\/explorersagainstextinction.co.uk\/initiatives\/stories-for-survival\/survivors-guilt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Luke Western Winner \u2013 Stories for Survival Writing Competition 2024 &#8220;A really stunning piece of writing, with a stark message that is all the more powerful for Luke\u2019s deceptively&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,299],"tags":[503,505,504],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Survivors&#039; 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