OTTER 841

by Katrinka Moore

For the past few summers, numerous surfers in Santa Cruz, Calif., have been victims of a crime at sea: boardjacking. The culprit is a female sea otter, who accosts the wave riders, seizing and even damaging their surfboards in the process… “Due to the increasing public safety risk, a team from C.D.F.W. and the Monterey Bay Aquarium trained in the capture and handling of sea otters has been deployed to attempt to capture and rehome her,” a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement. Local officials call the animal Otter 841. The 5-year-old female is well known, for both her bold behavior and her ability to hang 10. And she has a tragic back story, with officials now forced to take steps that illustrate the ways human desire to get close to wild animals can cost the animals their freedom, or worse, their lives. (Photo by Mark Woodward/Native Santa Cruz) —The New York Times, July 12, 2023

She has a true name, of course, that

we’ll never know.  But we can give her

a nom de guerre—maybe Greta (as in

Thunberg) or Harriet (as in Tubman) or

Lolita (Lebrón)—women warriors

fighting for their people as 841 is doing,

trying to beat back the invasive species

endangering her endangered habitat.

California Fish and Wildlife, there’s

a simple solution and it’s not to REHOME

this sea otter who’s living in her home.  Ban

the surfers.  Contrary to popular belief,

humans don’t really get to go wherever

they please and do whatever they want.

 

Katrinka Moore's latest book is Diminuendo. 

THE TURNING CIRCLE OF A BUCKET WHEEL EXCAVATOR

by Frank Joussen

Tweet via “Thousands hit German streets to protest coal mine expansion” in TRTWorld, January 14, 2022

keep it in the ground a famous activist from Sweden

says about Luetzerath’s now world infamous coal

while this monster of a word this monster of a machine

the gigantic bucket wheel excavator

is rearing its dragon head

over the edge of its devilishly long and deep pit

the monster’s casting a lasting shadow

over the children of the end game for the climate

who are risking life and limb

not to mention imminent law enforcement

in a useless attempt to stop the co2 madness

of a so-called green government

of course, they could leave

the coal in the ground

but the bucket wheel excavator

would have to go to another place

and can you imagine the costs

of turning this beast of a vehicle around?

In a matter of days this past week, more than 1,000 police officers cleared out the hundreds of climate activists who had sworn to protect the small village, once home to 90 people but no church, which was scheduled to be razed as part of a sprawling open-pit coal mine in western Germany. —The New York Times, January 15, 2023. Photo: A bucket-wheel excavator mines for coal at the Garzweiler coal mine near Luetzerath on November 2, 2022. CREDIT: Michael Probst / AP via The Atlantic.

Editor’s Note: The New Verse News published Frank Joussen’s “No Last Homely House in Luetzerath” on November 4, 2021. 

Frank Joussen is a German teacher and writer, peace and one world activist. His publications include two selections of his poetry. He has co-edited two international anthologies of poetry/fiction in India and one of short stories in Germany. His poems and short stories have also been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies in India, Australia, G.B., the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Romania, Malta, the U.S.A., Canada, China, Thailand and Japan; some of them have been translated into German, Romanian, Hindi and Chinese.

THIS IS THE SEASON

by Damian Balassone

Photo of Greta Thunberg from i-D Vice.

for Greta

This is the season
where the chief commits treason
and the riddler hides behind his rhyme.
This is the year
where the king instills fear
and the atheist prays behind drawn blinds.

This is the show
where nobody knows
if the story is fake or is real.
We’re told this is war
but no one’s quite sure
if they’re meant to crush snakes or bite heels.

This is the night
where the girl of the light
summons the stars and the spheres.
She looks to the skies
with furious eyes
and glimpses the moon through her tears.


Damian Balassone is an Australian poet whose work has appeared in over 100 publications, most notably in The New York Times.  He is the author of three volumes of poetry, including the forthcoming Strange Game in a Strange Land.

A CHILDREN'S CRUSADE 2

by Ralph La Rosa

This evolution of revolution
is a student-led crusade,
its first and foremost resolution:
saving earth can’t be delayed.

Ralph La Rosa remembers the good old bad days and hopes for better. His next book in the works is My Miscellaneous Muse: Poem Pastiches & Whimsical Words.

FOR THE YOUTH CLIMATE STRIKERS

by Pepper Trail

Greta Thunberg on a stage in Helsinki after speaking to a crowd of 10,000 people at a March 15, 2019 Fridays for Future rally.

You will lie down in shallow water
Shelter under roofing tin
Move on, keep on moving

On small screens, the most fortunate
Will remember coral reefs
Forests not on fire, elephants, tigers

You will have children, yes, because

You will sing to them
When they are hungry, feverish
When the storm rages

Some few of you, the saintly few
Will not hate us, not curse us
Will forgive


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.