A RISING TIDE

by Gordon Gilbert

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

At high tide the king comes to the shore

and stands upon the sands at water’s edge 

He commands the sea to leave his kingdom

as followers break into loud applause 

TRiUMPhantly he gloats as it recedes 

But alas he tarries far too long 

The tide has ebbed and soon relentlessly

the waters now make their advance

and still the king refuses to retreat

unheeding warnings from his own soothsayers 

He does not, cannot, won’t acknowledge

the inherent truth that laps now at his feet 

All shall soon be swept away

by the waters of the rising tide

just like the foolish pharaoh and his legions

in pursuit of Moses and his people

who when the waters parted chose to follow 

only to be drowned in the Red Sea 

Gordon Gilbert is a New York City west villager. In these trying times, he finds some solace taking long walks along the Hudson River. He keeps hoping things will turn around, waiting on that elusive inflection point, but it keeps receding. Maybe next time… 

Still waiting.

SEND THEM BACK

by Paul Hostovsky

Yes, let’s all go back

to where we all came from—

all of us—a few hundred thousand years ago,

back to the Great Rift Valley in Africa

where Mitochondrial Eve 

first opened her skirts 

and had enough daughters in a continuous chain

for her mitochondrial DNA 

to survive. Let’s all go back, every last one of us,

by foot or by boat–whichever way we 

came—no cars, trains, airplanes—

those of us who left

reuniting with those who never left. Plenty

of room now for all of us 

in the vast network of valleys 

that stretches between the Red Sea and Mozambique

where the giant rift is slowly tearing apart–

the Nubian tectonic plate

and the Somalian tectonic plate 

ever so slowly pulling apart, and at the same time

separating from the Arabian plate in the north. 

Let’s meet in Ethiopia where the three plates meet.

And though it will take us all a long time

to get there—8 billion of us and counting—

that’s okay because it will take a long time

for the fractures in the earth’s crust

to open up completely and form

a new ocean. But when they do

we will all be there. And then let's

all line up and hold hands

and go jump in a lake

together.

Paul Hostovsky's poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog.