my old street,
a perfect bicycle drag strip,
needed no gutters--all rains drained
into the bay
but today,
the lane where
I learned to drive, is a place gulls dance
and killdeer prance
this river
is a dozen inches deep
at street’s end, but a yard and growing at the bay
where the hot dog stand once steamed
the melting monsters
were a million miles from us, you know;
a threat to a Titanic, though surely inconsequential
to the Atlantic, or so it seemed
all the hype about heat, carbon emissions,
ozone’s demise, and other gassy notions, we thought
belonged in tomorrow’s world of worry
but tomorrow became today,
and now it’s commonplace to say,
"the shoreline receded--that neighborhood’s gone."
a continent constricted,
a lowly inch a year, by greed or divine design?
retribution from an earth that never forgets?
or a fickle force we cannot fathom?
I am ancient now, though I recall those admonitions,
ambiguities that fueled futile debate, until it was too late
and here I be, watching waters at low tide, lapping
against my feet on a once dry and driven street
E A R T H D A Y