Image source: The Verge |
Climate change will pose sharp risks to the world’s food supply in coming decades, potentially undermining crop production and driving up prices at a time when the demand for food is expected to soar, scientists have found. --NY Times, November 1, 2013
There will, or so it seems, come a day
when warming left-overs for dinner
will be only a good memory,
like the one of our visit to grandma and grandpa
on their farm, when we played in the straw
in the loft of the barn,
ate the white chicken that ran the yard,
potatoes pulled from patch, cooked then mashed,
and fresh plucked peaches in pie.
Grandma and grandpa have now grown cold
in the ground next to church down the road.
All day their granite stone warms in the sun.
At night it holds the heat, and listens to corn
cry for drink, beans beg for dew,
as restless children in old farm houses
pull blankets from their bodies, wish
for just a breeze to come cool the night
with fresh promise.
Jim Gustafson is an MFA student at the University of Tampa. His most recent book, Driving Home, was published by Aldrich Press in January, 2013. Jim lives in Fort Myers, Florida where he reads, writes, and pulls weeds.