The Poetry of Witness

A hillside falls away; we catch our breath.
Every day, now, we are witnessing the magnitude
of this present we have created, foreshadowing 
a hot and steamy future. Frog and pot,
we simmer just beneath the boil.

Wildfires are burning, rivers turn into lakes
and swallow towns. Trees tumble down a slope
like skidding toboggans, as Alaska melts
and polar bears grow thin.
And we live on. Nothing changes much,
except everything gets worse.
Large segments of the populace go mad.
Hatred, terror and grief are everywhere.
Humanity has lost its way; is there still time
to recalibrate our compass with the
songlines, re-align
our hearts and minds?

It comes to pass, the Mayans said.
We write the poetry of witness, of awe,
of fearful wonder - and the grief of comprehending
in our starry bones that we are witnessing
a leaving. We move forward because forward
is all we know, into the Great Amorphous Beyond
that holds our common fate.
I fear that we may be awaking
forty years too late.

for earthweal: Witness to a Magnitude.

This landslide took my breath away. Brendan's prompt is timely.