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| “The rainfall numbers are staggering. But the bigger picture scope and human perspective on the summer flood of 2014 is even more gripping.” --Minnesota Public Radio, June 25, 2014. Image source: CBS |
The exhaust from a car can kill you.
I saw a giddy fly knocked for
a loop the other day when it
got too close to a tail pipe,
Just dropped to the ground
like a stone and didn't
move anymore.
And I thought flies were
supposed to be tough
don't they like to eat
rotting garbage?
can’t they lift
a hundred times their weight?
Those carbon emissions
must really be toxic
good thing that most of it
just floats up into the air.
But I did see some
of the world’s glaciers
and a lot of our sea ice
melting as temps rise,
and the weather seems
really strange as of late---
with all those tornados, grapefruit
hail, 100-year floods and all.
Heard that the penguins in
Antarctica aren't breeding as much,
that more snow and rain
are getting other animals
to move from their homes,
and that more insects on
the earth are getting those
spruce trees all chewed up.
And look what’s coming:
sea levels rising---watch out
beach homes---stronger hurricanes
and storms, more floods and
drought, some diseases will
spread, ecosystems will disappear---
But what really caught my eye
yesterday was the dejected look
on the sun's frowning face
when someone mentioned global warming.
It reminded me of the proud
American Indian on his horse
in that commercial from a while back---
he was weeping and looking
at our trash blowing around,
remembering his world as it used to be.
Gil Hoy received a B.A in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Gil also is an elected member of the Brookline, MA Democratic Town Committee, and served as a Brookline Selectman for 12 years. Gil studied poetry at Boston University, and started writing his own poetry in February of this year. His poems have since been published in Soul Fountain, The New Verse News, The Story Teller Magazine, and Eye On Life Magazine. Gil is married, with three children, and lives in Brookline, MA.