Tipping Point

The significance of signs

We called our home in Ireland

The Sanctuary

Because a sign in the next field

Declared this was a sanctuary for wild life.

What it really meant

Was that only authorised people

Were allowed to kill

Animals on that land.

The Owenacurra River gushed

Clean over the rock

Behind the yellow furze

And the fuchsias

Until the fly tipping bowsers came.

There are signs

That signify nothing.

For Saussure, the signified and signifier

Are purely psychological,

They are form rather than substance.

What is the point

Of a sign saying,

“This is not a tip.”

In Rajagiriya, there is a sign

Saying,

“This land is not for sale.

Call this number.”

“Do not throw stones at this sign.”

“This is not a sign.”

In Fort Neaf,

As well as signs

Saying “this is not a tip”,

There are delicately stenciled

Injunctions

At the base of lampposts,

Urging respect for community values.

The response to this polite request

To refrain from tipping

Is for multifarious rubbish to be stacked

Around the lampposts.

The telephone exchange

Is a favourite site

For abandoned mattresses

Although all the streets

Have their share.

When babies outgrow

Their carriers and prams,

The obsolete paraphernalia

Takes its place on the street.

When the child tippy toes

Into a new shoe size,

The old footwear walks

Onto a wall.

All houses are split

Into multi-occupancy

With each household

Having four refuse bins.

These do not suffice

And overflow on to the pavement.

The rapid turnover

Of a floating population

Means much furniture becomes orphaned

And has to live on the street.

A respectable elderly lady

Carefully, in broad daylight,

Deposits a collection

Of cardboard packing cases

And discarded kitchen utensils

Right in front of our house.

That is the seedbed

For further generations of rubbish

And it soon becomes established

As a recognised tipping point.

Put up a sign saying

“No tipping”

And like flies to a dog turd

The fly tippers

Will come to that tipping point.

During this time of global

Catastrophe,

The most crucial action to avoid tipping points

Is to drastically cut emissions

From fossil fuels and transition

To renewable energy sources.

What chance of that

When people shit

On their own doorsteps,

And their neighbours?