Anthropocenic

:  when the nearest light is miles away yet 
                  and adorned on the night is a lightning bug
                                                                        as in a jarred cactus plant 
                                                      an open book without commas 

:  when the only thing you can touch is a plastic raft
                  and drenched between the hours is a cutting board
                                                                        as in a place for garlic 
                                                      and onions the face of early sky

:  when water undresses into tar sands
                  and to one long tune acacia trees dance some
                                                                        as in alder reach 
                                                      anything is worth the rain

:  when above more and more narrow miracles
                  and answers set to stone by a single hand
                                                                        as in a chorus of them
                                                      any shadow still means light

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

  

“I was cutting garlic and onions for dinner and noticed how white the sky seemed through the small window in my kitchen during yet another wildfire. That image became the poem’s first layer, and from there I explored different ideas and terms about climate change, each with its own definition. I found them all trying to translate the same experience: existing in a dying world. So the poem’s use of the colon is informed by those attempts at defining and translating the looking that we do through small windows and the way we encounter our vulnerability over and over again.”
—Jake Skeets