Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.—Habakkuk 3:9
Where the great ice-river wandered
Southward to the plains and mountains,
Through the valleys rivers flowed,
Bursting forth in lakes and fountains.
Now the rocks are fractured wide
And the poison festers upward,
Seeping into slate-gray tides
That spread throughout the shattered bone yard.
This zone of sacrifice is bleeding.
Flares visible from outer space
Make planets ask what horror-dreams
Must shake us nightly that we never tire
Of plundering our only place,
Poisoning the lakes and streams,
Burning rocks, and stoking fires
On which our greedy hearts are feeding?
The waters of the earth that are its blessing
Are now transformed to iridescent mud,
The residue of our transgressing
What was once our body and our blood.
—
Deborah Fleming’s nonfiction collection Resurrection of the Wild won the PEN-America Art of the Essay Award for 2020. Her second nonfiction collection Ghosts of an Old Forest will be available in 2025. She has also published one novel, five books of poetry, four volumes of scholarship, and stories, poems, and essays in journals. Three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Previously she served for many years as editor and director of the Ashland Poetry Press.
