Environment – Ivor.Plumber/Poet

Out of the Blue

From yesterday’s crow encounter, a poem emerged — a moment on the country’s edge, a sentinel shaping the sky’s peaceful realignment.

Out of the Blue

Upon the country’s outpost I stand,
a sentinel, overseeing this grand land.

I pause, breathe the whistling wind,
and unfurl my black feathered skin.

My wings flare out toward the light —
the world’s warring blight
is nowhere in sight.

Tranquility is my chosen line —
one sweep, the silent, sunlit sky is mine,
and out of the blue, nature’s shrine
peacefully realigns.

“A final breath of blue sky carrying the crow’s peaceful realignment into sound.”

Ivor Steven © September 2026

Throwback Friday, Fallen Ancestors

Twelve months ago, while visiting my cousins on Vancouver Island, I tapped out a small poem on my iPhone — a moment shaped by cedar shadows, cold tides, and old family echoes. Today’s Throwback Friday returns to that quiet day, and to the fallen ancestors the island seemed to remember.

Fallen Ancestors

Above
I saw time drift across the sky.

Below
I heard a grey, waterlogged tree cry,
“Is this the graveyard where my
fallen ancestors have been left to die?”

There
“Against the sea wall’s merciless granite crown,
surrounded by cold water crashing around…

Please
“Take my hand, guide me down,
so I can cover them with my green nightgown.”

A quiet echo of the sea’s old memory — as the tide carries its stories forward, this song keeps a heart in the water.

Ivor Steven © September 2026

Cyril the Seagull

In the soft glow of a haloed sun, a seagull and his friends traced a tale across the sky — and one of them decided to share a little wisdom as he climbed into the light, shaping today’s poem.

Cyril the Seagull

Cyril is no ordinary seagull,
he’s neither plain nor dull.

I’ve been watching him and his friends,
soaring through the clouds’ sunny trends.

When he swooped in close enough,
I asked him off-the-cuff:

“Why are you considered to be
so commonly homespun?”
He puffed his wings like a bumblebee
and proudly flew off toward the sun.

Cyril whispered as he climbed:
Like humans, we also populate the world
However, I’m free to fly and enjoy
nature’s phoenix sky uncurled.

And as Cyril lifts into the light, this timeless song rises with him — a quiet reminder to simply be.

Ivor Steven © August 2026

Winging Toward Peace

Sometimes a single flight can carry more meaning than the landscape beneath it.
This morning’s mudlark — lifting from foreign sands, gliding toward familiar green, then swept off course by an unexpected breeze — became the quiet messenger behind this piece. Its journey echoed the fragile paths we all take toward understanding, toward apology, toward peace.
What followed was a poem shaped by wings, weather, and the distant hum of icy choirs.

Winging Toward Peace

Swooping out past the sands of foreign ground
Then flying toward the green, bushy trees
of that once-fabled promised land —
only to be diverted by a bold eastern breeze
that buckled my wings and trembling knees
and sent me falling into the Arctic freeze,
where icy choirs continue the cheers
still singing in the hush of sub‑zero seas

There, huddling inside an iceberg’s solitary marque,
all the compassionate delegates from overseas
gathered to hear pleas for apologies and guarantees
from Greenland’s patient, peaceful trustees.

From foreign sands to frozen seas, the journey ends where quiet voices still know the weight of peace. And so, in Greenland’s calm, the final note on harmonious independence lingers.

Ivor Steven © August 2026

The Overseer

These stunning silhouettes stopped me in my tracks — quiet guardians perched above a fragile world. Their calm presence sparked the environmental protest tone of the four couplets below, a reminder of what remains pure when we look up and listen.

The Overseer

I am the overseer of my kingdom,
a global realm without a dome.

No barbed-wire fences, only sky,
beyond mankind’s envious eyes.

No landmines, only trees,
to house and shelter me.

No hard rain, only the sun,
glowing, to enlighten everyone

“And now, let the sky speak, where the light continues in sound, with a final glow of gentle music.”

Ivor Steven © August 2026

The Blue Fescue

The sky felt unsettled today — light pushing through cloud, a lone bird cutting across the haze, and the sun straining behind its thinning veil. These moments stayed with me, each one a quiet reminder of how fragile our atmosphere has become. From those three glimpses of the day, this small protest poem emerged, carrying both concern and hope for the blue we’re slowly losing.

Alongside that moment of sky and flight, two other images stayed with me today — another glimpse of the unsettled light above, and a quote from The Book Bird notice board. Richard Flanagan’s words felt uncannily aligned with the mood of this piece, reminding me how writing can step beyond politics and speak from a deeper, more human place. Together, these images helped shape the protest thread running through The Blue Fescue.

The Blue Fescue

Above Earth’s governing clouds,
beyond the atmosphere’s
atomic shrouds,
I hear the sun’s white veneer
pulsating from inside
the sky’s diminishing blue.

There hiding — teary-eyed —
waiting for an overdue
enlightening breakthrough
to cure the world’s
stewed blue fescue.

A song for the shifting sky — a reminder that even in the blur between heroes and villains, we’re still searching for the light that carries us forward.

Ivor Steven © August 2026

The World’s Dulcified Sty

A whisper from the deep past — where the earth was whole and the old rhythms still held sway. The music stirs that memory, and the images catch its fading light.

The World’s Dulcified Sty

The twilight sun doesn’t die;
it just goes down to hide
for a bit of shut-eye
and a quiet cry —

about the Earth being classified
by those who turn a blind eye
to the world’s dulcified sty,
that continues to be cannibalised
by the corporate blowfly’s
mercenary money supply.

Eye to Eye, or I to I

Down a quiet back lane near the café, this striking street art stopped me in my tracks — it felt like a quiet conversation waiting to happen, eye to eye with the unexpected.

Eye to Eye, or I to I

With one eye querying mankind
and the other eye wondering
about my state of mind —
bewildered and always pondering
what’s real beyond my Venetian blinds.

I am neither refined nor confined,
and I have escaped being quarantined.

I question myself.
Are my eyes behind the times,
or have I misread my bookshelf’s
poetry finds and the fairytale rhymes?

A final glance, and the moment drifted on — leaving its quiet echo behind, carried forward now in the music’s slow drift

Pigeons of the World (a Tanka)

This afternoon’s sky gifted me a flock of silhouettes — pigeons rising and circling through the light as if carrying the world’s weight on their wings. Their quiet resilience inspired the Tanka below, a small reflection on the lives caught beneath the shadows of conflict.

Pigeons of the World (a Tanka)

Here under the sun
I am not the only one
Being overrun
By the world’s greedy hired guns
Who’s minding our war torn sons?

And still the sky remembers what we forget — even the pigeons know the rise and fall of empires.

Beyond the Rainbow Bridge

Feature Image Above: is a photo montage in which I have glued a ‘cut-out’ bird onto my amazing photo of the rainbow bridge between the trees.

A cold, draining day still offered one quiet wonder —
a rainbow rising through the mist, inviting me to look beyond the familiar and follow a single thought into the blue.

Beyond the Rainbow Bridge

Here on the land’s highest ridge,
between the tall towering trees,
I’m inquisitively flying toward
an enchanting rainbow bridge —
which is mystically spanning
our world’s misty atmosphere.

There above, in the deep blue sky,
beyond the mesmerising arch,
I hear the sun’s advisory sigh —
“Let the grandeur of the universe
be your guiding matriarch”

And for those who wish to wander a little further, here’s a song that carries the same quiet, sky‑bound grace.