MONSOON BLUES

by Geoffrey Philp

Venice is sinking. So are Rotterdam, Bangkok and New York. But no place compares to Jakarta, the fastest-sinking megacity on the planet. Over the past 25 years, the hardest-hit areas of Indonesia’s capital have subsided more than 16 feet. The city has until 2030 to figure out a solution, experts say, or it will be too late to hold back the Java Sea. —Bloomberg, December 6, 2023

Walking along Jalan Tebet Baru Timur where the East Tebet Sugar Plantation once sprawled across the delta on which modern Jakarta is built, cranes hover over a metropolis dotted with blue and black plastic water tanks. The air seems thicker, trapped between the glass and steel towers crisscrossing the city where water supplies wither under a blazing tropical sun, and the city's thirst drains the last drop from depleted reservoirs.
 
While sea levels rise
Jakarta waits for the rain
in the Ring of Fire.

Author’s Note: As coastal megacities like Jakarta sink under the combined weight of rapid development, rising seas, and unstable land subsidence, these converging forces spotlight the harsh realities of climate change threats facing our urban future.

Geoffrey Philp, a Silver Musgrave Medal recipient, is the author of Archipelagos, a book of poems about climate change which was long-listed for the Laurel Prize. Philp’s Twelve Poems and a Story for Christmas retells the nativity story, transporting readers back to that holy night in a fresh yet traditional way. His poem “A Prayer for My Children” is featured on The Poetry Rail—an homage to 12 writers who shaped Miami's culture. He  lives in Miami and is working on a children's book Marsha and the Mangroves.

AFTER THE FLAMES, FLOOD

by Dick Altman

I’ve learned that no matter what

your faith—we on the high desert

plains – aloud or to ourselves—

pray for rain—and lots of it

Two-months of unquenchable

wildfires left us parched

for water—anything to restart

the charred landscape

 

Fill our depleted reservoirs—

revive our withered crops—

awaken our weakened pinion

and aspen—I pray—and while

at it—I add—our yellow cow-pen

daisies—red-orange mallow—

purple Russian sage—to round

out the bouquet we call—

with now-and-then fondness—

our “desert bloom”

 

A deluge ensues—not our usual—

if one can use that word—monsoon—

what we half-jokingly call our rainy

season—but rain of epic power—

rain that washes away people—

houses—cars—roads—and not

least—in the grand scheme—ash

 

I scoop up a handful—light—

innocent—a mere handful

in an ocean of ash layered over

a charred seabed—until hurricane-

like floods set it in motion—

sweeping it into ponds—river—

community water systems—

killing stream life—sickening

people – disrupting life already

disrupted by epochal fires

What next—I can only ask—

half expecting to hear a cloud-

enshrouded voice intone—

without a trace of a smile—

“Locusts”

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where,at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.