by Alfred Fournier
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| Water levels at Lake Mead have fallen dramatically amid a record drought. Compare the satellite images of the lake in 2000 and in 2022, and you can see the stark decline. NASA Earth Observatory via Vox, August 17, 2022 |
shrunken by drought,
reveal body by body our sins:
bricks heaved into once-deep water.
Inch by inch, layers of strata denuded
become sheets of ancient music
played on instruments of doom.
One last chorus for the climate scientists,
our voices rising in thin atmosphere,
where far above the moon peers down.
Is that a frown on the old man’s face,
or does our willful dance with fate amuse him?
Alfred Fournier is an entomologist, writer and community volunteer living in Phoenix, Arizona. His poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, International Times, The Main Street Rag, The American Journal of Poetry, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere.