for Michael J DeLuca
How can I write you this letter
through thick smoke the sun
a red dot in the sky
I should not be able to stare into
How can I make an appointment
with the car dealer
while mother Tahlequah takes
her tour of duty displaying for us
hairless monkeys what the rest
of the natural world already knows
How can I take a shower
when thousands of people have poison
to drink
How can I look out the window at the moon
stroke my cat’s chin
make my bed
How can I admire the late blue background
and mountain silhouette on the ferry heading home
How can I take a seat on a bus
hurtling toward a city of dog-walkers businessmen
and concerned shrugs of passers-by
it’s terrible this smoke it’s all terrible
I know it’s really terrible I know I know
How can I bring the sleeping children home
after a long day of amusement park
fried foot-long corndogs
How can I look up my visa bill when
our relationship with the earth
is toxic
stored now in blubber
of whales that send us warnings
and raw grief
a suffocation of sound and light
in the realm of the dead
How can I make plans with a friend
buy groceries drink tea
while we are plunging toward an inevitable
tipping point
no return
extinguishing what has been
like a comet
or a cancer
or a chapter of some future history book
when we alter landscapes lose habitat
when the world shrinks
gets hotter tighter angrier
goes hungry
How can I search for a lost coat
my favourite when
we are losing every day
pieces of our humanity
of green
of corals and bees
and owls and streams
How do I rekindle passion’s poetry without falling into despair
feeling holding me there
when I exist in coffee pots lists renovations of the old
dish-washing laundry finally unpacking all my books—
finding homes for paperwork and tools
getting on them weeds in the garden out of control
testing recipes
collecting that fruit before it rots on the trees
How do I do the deep work
maintain connection to that slightly
MAD state
and go about my day lost as I long to be
How can I sit in an alley playing drums with a Turkish immigrant
How can I breathe smoke on the shoreline while
using my cell phone as a hot spot to
send an email about a postcard for a
talk about climate change
How can I sleep?
How can I ask a friend how I can do these things when
he says
How can we anything
My heart breaks because other hearts do not
my heart breaks and I go on making plans
scheduling dates
daydreaming about getting laid
calling out to alley cats
to birds overhead
to the leaves in the trees
How can I dress myself for success
add accessories
buy lemon tarts
browse antique stores
try on possible new shoes
my generation acquiesces to the inevitable
while millennials dream of Super Heroes
bursting through the screen
Somebody
do
something
do
something
I want to scream
Let go of every device in your hands
and look up are we going to lose
the sky on our way to losing the sea
How can I leave space for us
to breathe
How can I
unbury your ears
shape a new kind of listening
to what is under our feet and floating
still-born (yet still hoping)
all around us stating the obvious
How can we anything he asks while
chopping onions and peppers
to feed his young family
in the midst of idling engines
cooked rivers
air-conditioned ignorance
Beautiful poignant