Sigh
by Bob Hicok1
Either crickets, frogs, or Republicans will become extinct here in a few decades as temps rise. Or bees, apple trees, mosquitoes. No one knows what will go, just that the going is coming to a desert nee pasture or budding flood plane near you. I’ve told the grubs to pack and head north, mice to stock up on umbrellas and water, the Roanoke River to stick out its thumb and hit the road, but they listen about as well as we do to ourselves. I’ve always liked that apocalypse rhymes with taco chips and believed nothing’s impossible for us except walking through walls, levitating, and changing in fundamental ways. Having painted ourselves into a corner in a burning house on a sinking ship lost at sea, we’re doing what we do best: waiting for the Super Bowl to see which ads are funniest. How does one species apologize to another: Dear Dung Beetle, We’ve done you wrong, Dear Maple Tree, We’ve left you as much snow and Canada as we could? All suffering is local and most places are elsewhere and everyone is someone else but you: these are the mountains that empathy, collective action, and planning have to climb. The amazing human brain is a gun pointed at itself. As much as I love my wife and green hills and blue skies and life, I hate this poem, that I could write it with our eyes closed.
1
This poem first appeared in Kenyon Review, Volume 41, Number 6, Nov/Dec 2019
Bob, you sonnofabitch. You got me again. Poignant and lovely as always.