Note: These poems are inspired by the climate movement. The second piece is a tribute to the New York Climate march on September 17th, 2023.

Gathering #1

The hair on your arm starts to rise

That’s the first sign

You’re suddenly aware that you’re alive

And everything is quiet

Like the clouds took a b r e a t h 

On the crest of a hill

Or cliff, all it takes is a leap

But they’re too afraid to try it

Without their dog, they’re like sheep

Slowly padding in their puffy white fleece

In a bright blue pasture

Only now they’re moving faster

(whispers of disaster)

And it’s dark but it’s light

Surely brighter than it should be 

Cause it feels like night

And you’re certain that it would be

If the time worked right

But the ticking must be frozen

This is the hour chosen

And now you feel it close in.

Gathering #2

75000

People parade the streets

Leaf cutter ants

Under concrete trees

Brandishing our cardboard quarry–

Our personal piece of the story—

A scrap that we add to the heap

And hope

 it's the one that will get

This camel’s back broke

A dam broke

In a children’s book I read

And smiling men came to fix it

They wore suits and flew

In a helicopter

And thought they could stop the rising water

But I’ve never believed in this artificial calm

Sure, cement is strong

But our ranks are long

And the ants     march     on

We carry twenty times our weight 

The pressure of un-precedence

Presses heavy on our chests

Until tissues tear and lungs deflate

We fight

 for oxygen and life

We fight for oxygen

And life

For water

And for one another

We find our breath and forge ahead 

Leaf cutter ants at the world’s edge

Clutching our photosynthetic load

food for a fungus that can decompose

the teetering industrial trees we know

And lay the bed 

For the forest—to regrow