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Rocky Mountain National Park at 12,000 feet with the Cameron Peak Fire raging 10 miles to the west. William Mathe photo, 8/15/2020. |
We do not have to fear it anymore,
The change has already happened.
It is our fault,
We let it go too late.
Even the clocks have run out of time.
How to imagine the unimaginable—
Spent fuel, burnt wind, mute swans.
We, the Americans,
We watched it happen,
The all-consuming crisis.
Then came fire.
We drove out past the flooding
To watch the birds
In the lateness of the world,
And in the great transition
No one could tell
If we were doomed or free.
—Cento from "Poems from the Storm," Elisa Gebbert, New York Review of Books, with lines by Chris Nealon.
