October 2024
Author's Note: These poems are loosely based on the theme of horror. After all, isn't the threat of irreversible climate change terrifying?
Letter to Earth
I know you suffer. It's a new old story.
But I believe the day will come
when your rivers will run pure again,
when your seas will be clean and dazzled
with fish. Nights will be black again
and crackle with starlight. For every
living thing that went extinct, new ones
will take their place. In your marrow,
the memory of us will turn again to carbon
and remain there, finally harmless.
Air will flow sweet around the trunks
of trees, waterfalls will pound
the river rocks, and the sky will fill
with insects and birds, wild and loud again.
Originally published in ONE ART and nominated for Best of the Net
Earth's Mercy
We ride Earth’s back
but she doesn’t buck us off.
When she shudders we feel it.
When she bucks, things fall.
We know that worse can happen,
that we are at her mercy.
But Earth has no mercy,
no desire. We are at the mercy
of life’s unspooling wire;
we’ve no more power
than the sea has over fire.
Originally published in Worcester Review
The End of the World
My great-grandmother fetched water from a well
while the crone down the road hollered
Repent! The world is ending!
My grandmother lay the cards out and told her believers
they would get their wish; I think she kept the news
of world's end to herself.
My mother jitterbugged with sailors on their way
to war while the curmudgeon spoke a warning
from his porch next door.
I watch spring unfold in my garden in a wash of new green
and my grandchildren smile from my laptop screen;
I trust the world will carry on its endless ending.
Originally published in Rat's Ass Review
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