August, 2018
Dear Ones—We’ve come from many corners
of our world to this August weekend
of plays and the lanterns that light our way
up the hill, out of the wars and storm
of this runaway century into the trials
and tears of other worlds—last night
the recruiting officers came through town
and told the old men’s fortunes, took
the young men off to war, left the girls
to weep—and yesterday afternoon,
two brothers, one black, one white,
in South African eyes, fought
in the one room that they shared.
We’ve fled the floods of microbursts—
eight to fifteen inches washing out roads
and railroad beds, leaking through
basements and roofs. Under the house
we stay in tonight something has died
not so long ago. Sometime soon we’ll be past
the tipping point of climate change,
a mob of the displaced with nowhere
to go, howling at the gates; or meeting
in secret circles of knitters and quilters,
poets and artists, chronicling
for some future age our terrifying tilt.
