The Bering Sea is taking the little village of Newtok,
pushing up the river, pulling down the lowly bluffs,
giving water for land, so the houses tip and sink,
the people leapfrog backward toward the tundra,
knowing they cannot root in that soggy ground,
knowing they are at the beginning of the end of the world.
We like to have names for places and we like
to tell stories, but in telling the story of Newtok
we leave in silence everywhere without a little village –
the drowning delta, the melting frozen ground,
the flooded nests of geese and gulls,
the salt scorching the crowberry and willow,
and the sodden winters and the ice-bare shore,
no resting place for seals, no solid hunting ground.
Enough! (I can hear you say)
A story needs a human face,
a victim, a villain, a hero.
This spreading water,
a perfect mirror.
This poem first appeared in The Kudzu Review (2016).
—
Pepper Trail retired following a long career with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and is a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society. His poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, Catamaran, Rattle and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. His collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.
