Green Literati Edit

William Duke

Global Warming

From the safety of my armchair
I see a picture of dusty wind and prairie fire.

I’m watching the weather Channel.
The temperature is 89 degrees,
rising.

In spite of the calming professional voice of the weather woman,
Slowly I start to feel the road rage of progress,
Its angry acceleration and overheating asphalt.

Friendly symbols of cloud and smiling sunshine
mock the silent clock,
the ticking Geiger counter of unradiated energy -–
mass multiplied by velocity squared
accumulating exponents
of untold atoms.

Swollen isobars
display a contour map of congestion, traffic,
leaded gas, carbon monoxide
low over Mexico City,

There was drought in starving Ethiopia,
And nine rings of fire surround a LA
A highway burns
and New Orleans is lost to flood.

The crisp announcement of storm warning
the excited state, the expanding mass
the radioactive core
the melting glacier and rising tide.
So here in this armchair, this far-away place
I watch the uncontrolled experiment,
a run-away tractor-trailer,
it’s smoking break screaming,
screaming to stop crash of glass and steel.

Posted at 09:55 PM on July 11, 2007 | report