They sent out a dove
It wobbled home, wings slicked in a rainbow of oil
A sprig of tinsel snagged in its beak
A yard of fishing line binding its feet

Bring back
Bring back the leaf

They sent out an arctic fox
It plodded the bays of the Northern fringe
In muddy socks and a nylon cape

Bring back
Bring back the leaf

Bring back the reed and the reef
Set the ice sheet back on its frozen plinth
Tuck the restless water course into its bed
Sit the glacier down on its highland throne
Put the snow-cap back on the mountain peak
Let the Northern lights be the Northern lights
Not the alien glow over Glasgow or Leeds

A camel capsized in a tropical flood
Caimans dozed in Antarctic lakes
Polymers rolled in the sturgeon’s blood
Hippos wandered the housing estates

Bring back
Bring back the leaf

Bring back the tusk and the horn unshorn
Bring back the fern, the fish, the frond and the fowl
The golden toad and the pygmy owl
Revisit the scene where swallowtails fly
Through acres of unexhausted sky

They sent out a boat
Go little breaker
Splinter the pack ice and flows
Nose through the rafts and pads of wrappers
And bottles and nurdles and cans
Of bergs and atolls and islands and states of plastic bags and micro beads
And the forests of smoke

Bring back
Bring back the leaf
Bring back the river and sea