All That's Gone - April 6 2023

 

All That's Gone

April 6 2023

The canyon is long and deep and narrow.

On my stomach

creeping cautiously to the edge

I look down its steep-sided walls

into a black pit

of cold dense air.

Where, in its depths

a subarctic climate

of rare plants and dwarf trees

is a cool refugium

in a warming world.

Will we find ourselves, as well

fleeing underground?

Or taking refuge

in mountaintops, and higher latitudes,

in the bright rarefied air

and whatever remains of ice?

Or will we be trees,

rooted in familiar soil

too stubborn to uproot ourselves?

Survivors,

fortified against the heat;

building seawalls, and clever machines,

eating algae and drinking pee

in a wilderness

of small dusty leaves

and cracked earth?

Our memory

of all that's gone

has grown vague over the years,

the Arcadia we squandered

and cannot pass on.

But longing

to see life return

for even one more brilliant spring;

a greening world,

diverse, and flourishing.