photo: ralph murre
Drought
by
Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz
When
I was a child, a greenhouse seemed exotic--
poinsettias
peering out at snow.
Easter
lilies white as wedding gowns.
glass
mysterious with the breath of plants.
Now,
we all live in one,
the
sun a giant gro-light,
the
air a maze of halogen.
No
pounding on the glass will set us free.
Someday
from the lemur-eyes of gas masks,
we
will see faint outlines of our ghosts --
lisping
breath of proboscis-hoses.
Stunted
corn will be plowed under
for
wheat fields that do not germinate.
Shriveled
leaves will blanket the ground
white
as drifts of snow
that
once held the prints of angels.
Sleds
will hang on museum walls,
children's
ice skates rest behind glass.
If
science concocts a giant mirror, pale antidote
to
deflect sun, will it crack like a glacier?
Children,
ask grandpa, when you gather at his knee,
to
tell you about when there were birds
who
rode on air you couldn't see.
~
previously published in Earth First!
