NEANDERTHALS IN THE TILE

by Sally Zakariya

This floor tile imported from Turkey and installed during a home renovation contains what is believed to be a cross section of an ancient human jawbone. (Courtesy of Reddit user Kidipadeli75 via The Washington Post)

Check the counters and floors

check all the travertine tiles

Look for signs of the old ones

reaching up through time

   slivers of bone

      shards of teeth

Imagine the beginning: a natural

hot spring somewhere in Turkey

Layer after layer of plants and animals

trapped in the mud and fossilized

Mammoths, rhinos, giraffes,

deer, reptiles—even humans—

embedded in the travertine

Look down and count the years—

a million or more

Each step we take on earth, we walk

on the past

Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 100 publications and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her publications include All Alive Together, Something Like a Life, Muslim Wife, The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, and When You Escape. She edited and designed a poetry anthology Joys of the Table and blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.

STRIKETOBER

by Tom Bauer

William Blake (1757–1827) “Behemoth and Leviathan.” Pen and black ink, gray wash, and watercolor, over traces of graphite. Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1903. The Morgan Library & Museum.

New ‘Striketober’ looms as US walkouts increase amid surge in union activity. Support for unions is on the rise as workers take action to raise pay and conditions amid booming company profits. —The Guardian, September 26, 2022

Was that ever a thing in ancient times?

Did it happen building the pyramids?

Those workers weren’t slaves but they didn’t get much.

When did unions really begin? When did

inequities of behemoths begin?

Perhaps it is a species thing. Feels old.

The feeling of, the shape of, a company,

is an old shape dragging a trench across time.

This rough beast shapes us with an owning force,

a power center employing thousands, making

us swarm to assigned tasks for minimal pay

and no share in the gains made by the few.

This behemoth of shape, this company, looming

block with a whip in hand, stands over us still.

Tom Bauer's an old coot who lives in Montreal and plays a lot of board games.

AMONG THE DEAD SEQUOIAS

by Pepper Trail

In this April 22, 2021 photo provided by Sequoia & Kings National Parks is a stand of burned sequoias in Sequoia National Park, CA following the 2020 Castle Fire. At least a tenth of the world’s mature giant sequoias were destroyed by a single California wildfire that tore through the southern Sierra nevada last year, according to a draft report by scientists with the National Park Service. Photo credit: Tony Caprio/Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks via AP and KTLA.

When the immortals die

The thousand-year trees

When they burn

 

It is time for the climate scientists

All the deepest thinkers

To gather, to bring their life's-work

Their most elaborate models

Their most detailed simulations

To meet in the grove of fire-blacked giants

Clasp each other's shoulders, bow their heads

Scatter their predictions among the ashes

And return the way they came, empty-handed

 

Now at last we know: we know nothing

We have killed the world of our understanding

And our future, a lifelong lesson in grief

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.