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Saturday, April 26, 2014

Poem #26- Polar Ice Caps



I've joined Mary Lee Hahn and Kevin Hodgson in Mary Lee's Poetry Challenge, "Our Wonderful World."

This week, I've been kind of limping along in poetry land. I like to write in the morning, but this week  I have had way too much going on at school and with my mom and my boys and it's been 8:00 every evening before I put on my poetry hat. And as anyone who knows me can attest, by 8:00, I'm more pumpkin than poet.

Anyway, today's topic is Polar Ice Caps. And I'm determined to write a poem this morning and not to have to struggle through that night writing thing today…

"Will People Care…?"
How do you write about global warming?
How do you make people care?

What about rising seas?
If I write about how major cities
like London, Amsterdam, Berlin,
Washington D.C.; Miami
and New Orleans
could be underwater
Will people care about that?

What about fresh water?
If I write about how
thousands of people in Peru
might not have drinking water
by 2100
because the Quelccaya ice cap is melting
Will people care about that?

What about drought?
If I write about how
rainfall in Ethiopia,
where drought is already common,
could decline by
ten percent
over the next fifty years
Will people care about that?

What about ecosystems?
If I write about how global warming
causes species to move north
and changes entire ecosystems
and how some species
will adapt and survive
but others will become extinct
Will people care about that?

What about polar bears?
If I write about how polar bears
are becoming hungry and skinny and desperate
because of a shortened hunting season
or about how a mama polar bear
recently swam for nine straight days to reach sea ice
and lost twenty percent of her body weight
and her cub
Will people care about that?

Or what about spruce bark beetles?
If I write about how the
population in Alaska has increased
and consumed four million acres
of spruce trees
used for lumber
and paper
Will people care about that?

How do you write about the polar ice caps?
How do you make people care?

(C) Carol Wilcox, 2014

2 comments:

Mary Lee said...

Did I already comment once? I can't remember because I immediately tweeted out your poem and commented on our blog.

Here's what I said on our blog:

Talk about taking your breath away -- that's what your poem does to me! Zow. And still I drive my car. And still I buy fruit from Chile. It's not that I don't care, it's just that it doesn't seem like it would change anything if I gave up everything I do that leaves a carbon footprint. And yet for anything to change at all, we ALL need to sacrifice. But when will that happen?

It's circular and despair-making. Thank you for a poem that rages with specificity.

Dogtrax said...

Powerful call to action and understanding. Unfortunately, politics often get in the way of action.
Kevin