Sharing this poem from my new chapbook A is for Anthropocene. With work from four other brilliant poets: Sherry Marr, Nina Nazir, Suzanne Miller and Brendan Macodrum, this is a collection that focuses on climate change – reasons, impact and actions. If you’d like to get your copy, drop your email here or write to suspension.point@yahoo.com
I’m sharing this particular poem because of news this week on how the Indian ocean is warming at crazy levels with possibly dire consequences. Climate change is not something that may affect us in the future…it is here and now!
Ocean
Sit on the shore or by
a memory of brine
and listen to the
surf. The ocean
tells stories. If you
think about marine
heatwaves, it will
tell you about rising
levels and kelp and
walruses. If you frown,
it will tell you that
some days, in some
places, it gets warmer
than 38oC. If you
worry about coral
bleaching, the waves
will explain
symbiosis and
zooxanthellae. If you
wonder about acidity,
they will teach you
about pH and
bicarbonates. If you
shake your head,
they will roll their
tongues and tell
you what is
happening to
crabs and oysters
and sea-urchins
and phyto-
plankton. If you
think about
tomorrow, the waves
will stand still, the
water a sheet that
they dare you to
walk on. If you
ask where to, they will
carry you on their
backs, the way they
carry an entire sky,
every night, and your
hands will reach and
reach and reach for
the million stars that
don’t stop but keep
on drowning.
THOUGHT PURGE 
A great poem and a great theme for a chapbook – could you please send me a pdf of it Rajani – humanist55@gmail.com – thanks…
In this year’s A-Z Challenge, I was writing about Commodities and also a poem to a form alphabetically themed with each one and environmental implications kept cropping up – especially expressed in the poems – here is on of them – https://how-would-you-know.com/2024/04/barley-and-a-bop-poem.html
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Thank you for your interest. Will email a copy. Am eager to read your commodities series… I had a quick look at it seems very interesting.
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All the signs are there, but we just refuse to listen.
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You’ve touched on what cries for our attention as we gaze mesmerized at the ocean, perhaps sensing this is where we came from and where we will return to.
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Thanks Maria, if we act quickly and substantially, we might still avoid catastrophe… hopefully.
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Your “think about tomorrow,” phrase is what we aren’t doing. Very self centered, which is the natural person. What the kids and grandkids will say about us will hurt our egos as enjoyed so much now.
..
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Maybe that’s why it is the young at the forefront of the calls for change… they are wondering if they have a future….
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All true. Sadly true.
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Yes, sadly…and getting worse.
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Oh, wow! You say such devastating things – or, even more, convey them in the unsaid – yet say them so beautifully!
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Thank you.. that intersection between poetry and climate change is still a narrow, thinly populated space…but I am glad this chapbook came together…
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