STANZAS, SCENES & CHAPTERS

  Always in a hurry!! Feet speaking faster than the heart. Running as if tomorrow has a whistle and today is already being fined. He overtakes traffic lights, argues with junctions, insults roundabouts for delaying destiny. He pushes his way out of church before the final Amen settles, because even God must understand he is in a hurry. Hurry to where? Last to enter the meeting, first to vanish from it. Body present, soul already halfway home. He nods at discussions his mind did not attend. Always in a hurry.  He walks like a scooter under his heels! It is as though he is in a marathon contest with the winds of the world In a hurry to build mansions his pockets protest against. In a hurry to chauffeur wagons whose engines drink salaries. He eats fast, prays fast, loves fast, lives as if life is a queue he is desperate to escape. He hurries, hurries, hurries, just to arrive at the one place that does not rush anyone. Six feet under. No traffic! No...

The email is still vivid in my mind. “Please can you just come and take photos of our workshop and post them on social media?” Please, we have visitors. We need photos. Please take communication along. I paused before replying. Not because I was busy. Not because I was unwilling. But because I knew the request was not about climate communication. It was about photography. Nothing more. Across climate projects in West Africa, communication professionals are quietly being redefined. Not as interpreters of science. Not as translators of risk. But as official photographers with Wi-Fi. The routine is familiar. Arrive early. Capture the keynote. Snap the banner. Line everyone up for the group photo. Post it. Add the word impact to the caption. Everyone relaxes. Something has been “done”. Nothing changes. Somewhere along the line, we confused visibility with meaning. We began to believe that if it appeared online, it must have mattered. Climate communication slipped from helping people ...