We weep now in silence, no tears,
wounded but too dry to bleed,
as ocean-source grows warmer,
morning fog thins, fades away,
no longer carried to us on the wind,
and the drip-drip daily arpeggio
of our sustenance dwindles,
almost gone.
We watch our neighbor-streams dying,
dried leaves, dead branches floating,
salmon and steelhead gasping,
unable to spawn.
We have no hands, no tools, no voice.
Can you hear our soundless scream?
We beg you, please,
stop feeding the flames.
—
Cynthia Bernard is a long-time classroom teacher and an emerging writer of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. She lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Multiplicity Magazine, Passager, Verse-Virtual, Poetry Breakfast, The Seattle Star, and elsewhere. She was selected by Western Rivers Conservancy to serve as the Poet-Protector of Deer Creek Falls in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills.
