creative writing on environmental justice
Rivers lament over why they were born, they
Question their existence, ask their maker if any
The rivers weep copious tears no one can see
For the loss irreparable. Clinically dead, they
Seem to wait for a time when news echoes in
The air: the wasteland returns. Cuckoos will
No more sing to declare the advent of spring
Deadly and ear-piercing cries of humans and
Animals . . .
from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth
Ownership
CLIMATE ANXIETY: 5/12/16
Heat, dryness, really sick people, kind of barren landscapes. A lot of—as I’m listing things off it looks a little bit like what’s happening right now, in terms of economic and cultural devastation. A lot more complete separation of folks with resources and folks without resources, . . .
My Swedish cousins were very confused by the walk through the woods down to the Mississippi River. “How far are we from Minneapolis?” they kept asking. And we would repeat: we’re in Minneapolis. This is part of Minneapolis. We’re in Minneapolis right now. They gazed at us in frustration, unsure what part of their excellent English was not getting through. “But . . .
Like coronary occlusion, it began small, spiral shell and Sierpinski gasket, a vibration amongst the strings rippling outward into rising sea levels, Pacific hurricane, the exhalation of universes, sublime and terrifying– and then we were gone. Love and strings; they go together.
I poured into him my rivers with their poisons, my plains and valleys . . .
It used to be that I didn’t dare stop driving around—people would notice; I’d make them feel guilty and they might attack. Now, on my walks through the harbour, all I have to do is duck the cars that smash through the barrier high above my head. And flinch when they hit the heap of metal that lines the sea wall.
Ride not riot. That’s the tiny government’s latest slogan. . . .
Expect of me no high editorial remove. Not this year. I opened this project for submissions six months ago in a different world. Nothing is as I imagined it would be.
Yet I find that almost everything I wanted out of Reckoning remains the same—and suddenly it means a lot more. The individual, personal, visceral ways injustice and exploitation affect us mean so . . .