like softened glass,
hairless plastic doll.
Fragmented rim of once-proud porcelain plate.
Wood scrap reduced to smooth umber edge,
half a cinder block passes for a great, gray stone.
When the sea rises it will not give us back our lives, whole.
It will not give us back the voices of the islanders
or the cove where they fished for thousands of years.
Not the glaciers, already gone,
not the coastal cities built over centuries,
not the heat-stricken grandparents with no air conditioning.
Not the artists, or their murals, or the preschool chalk drawings
swallowed in floodwater.
Not the bleached white reefs once shimmered with fish,
the alpine trees and no higher ground.
There are no far-away lands when the largest forest burns.
When the last library is singed dry,
when it is too hot to grow tomatoes,
who will we be?
What pieces will fasten together our humanity then?
—
Emilie Lygren is a nonbinary poet and educator whose work is grounded in curiosity and reverence. She’s taught writing in a variety of contexts: classrooms, research stations, graduate programs, parks, libraries, and beyond. Emilie’s first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, won the Blue Light Book award in 2021. Find more of her work and words at emilielygren.com.
