creative writing on environmental justice
Of course the planes weren’t going to explode on their way to JFK. But we liked watching them just in case.
“Don’t you remember on 9-11, how they said that the buildings were bombed?” King asked.
“You remember 9-11?” King had that look in his green eyes, dreamy yet determined, that I’d known since high school. The look when he declared that mushrooms were fertilized . . .
The landlord held out a gun. Shara took it from him. She was doing the mother shtick, which meant playing the protector. The landlord didn’t know she was only six years older than me. He might rescind his offer if he knew I was a homeless orphan.
Next he presented us with an axe. “The rifle is for rats,” he said. He’d spray-tanned his face, drawing a yellow line under . . .
1.
The year 2067 is an endless Water War. I am standing in front of what used to be a Pizza Pizza on the corner of Queen and Bathurst, fighting alongside my family, because of course my family is there. I am toothless and my partner’s glasses are so scratched they’re almost useless and our son has made us armour from old license plates. I am defending my ancient sloshing . . .
i. Data
Omitted from calculations, all manner of plausible certainty,
this rock of burden bleeding the way oxen do when driven home. Here,
a projection of growth, exponential: a hot bird touches a hot stone. Now, a graph:
a hot bird touches a hot stone in a hot palm. Next slide: a hot bird touches a hot stone
in the hot palm of a prophet of profit (good one, Dan!) orange . . .
I moved to Florida from Wisconsin when I was ten, but Curtis “Wild Hair” Kensington had been born there. I remember him running across the vacant lots, shirtless with his chaotic hair flying, his skin red from the sun in those pre-sunscreen days. His feet were so tough from going barefoot that the sandspurs that pained the rest of us bounced from the callused soles . . .
beside the crick a few cm deep
it glides across spilt jumbles of rock
curling trails of unctuous vapor
spin fractals up my arm from a stub
pinched between fingers white smoke
fades away into the glare off the water
the crick chatters
the din of each flow a voice
a dinner party. the audience hushes
itself after the orchestra has finished tuning
and for a moment i am with . . .
It’s one in the morning & my daughter is missing
I lie in the dark car, a crate of tools by my head
(I should be calling her father)
We started out together, peaceful citizens walking the logging road, shaded
by old growth trees, police helicopters, yellow-taped exclusion zones
that moved in puppet-string tugs—government toying with prey.
We carried contraband: . . .
(1)
A giant human shadow on earth
Engulfs the ocean and cloud
Remains arid now heavy hearted
Angel there praying for light.
Mother sitting in the sun.
In the kitchen she cooks something
She stands still, tap is on
Basin is clogged, water soon
Floods our planet.
Star dust around her face,
My son playing in the backyard
Fears the shadow, I say
It is your granny, look. . . .
1
(The Cyclone)
An owl cries for her baby.
Dead body is found nowhere.
The storm again is a good
Killer of unborn dreams.
My father mourns for the tree.
The trunk lies on the ground,
Sleeps and soon will die.
He planted it years ago.
2
(The Wildfire)
Heaven now turns hell.
Wildfire burns the feathers
Of the parrot, now she crawls,
Crawls to breathe a little more,
Fire . . .