Tomorrow by Mara Lemanis

Tomorrow by Mara Lemanis

 

Tomorrow

 

Tomorrow maybe

the sun won’t rise

but lie

quenched in ash;

Tomorrow maybe

the glaciers won’t stand

but pool naked

in water leaching their skin;

Tomorrow maybe

the seas won’t thirst

but hunger for land,

rising homeless,

gorging on

canyons, deserts, steppes

as fugitive oil curdles

 earth’s compass

fracking the meridian.

 

Tomorrow we’ll grasp

at each other’s relics

and pray to the force

we think tends us,

guides us, defends us,

and ask it to take back

the oil, the land, the sun,

ask it to

faultlessly

shape us

in a ribbon

of opaline acid,

a spiral gleaming

with unforeseen life.

                                                                                              

                                                                                 Mara Lemanis

 

                                           Images: 1) fires on lake in Napa California, 2) DNA particle spiral