by Virginia Aronson
Autumn sky unfurls a white cloud balm
between the splash of forget-me-not blues;
the sea's hand welcomes us to calm,
her salt tang warming as it soothes.
Fish chew our feet, nibbling dead skin,
crabs' little pincers that make us laugh;
we wade out, sink, rise up deeper in
the lap of our mother, her womb a bath.
Wide-winged osprey dive down to warn us
over and over their sharp, bitter cry:
destruction from that which will soon engulf us—
ill nature, yes; and we too shall die.
What is so small we know not its weight
building up, amassing—until it's too late?
Virginia Aronson is the Director of Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation. Her novel about food and climate change, A Garden on Top of the World, was published by activist press Dixi Books in 2019. Dixi also published Mottainai: A Journey in Search of the Zero Waste Life.