Friday, October 24, 2014

1605. Poetry: Say You See

By Vanessa Jimenez Gabb, September 7, 2014
People's Climate March in New York, September 21, 2014

look at the way the water has become so unnatural
the way the land is not itself

you say there is nothing wrong
with the way this has become war
it is not war at all
close your eyes
go back to sleep

to be awake is to be at war
there is nowhere left to be
you must open your eyes
you must not flee

look in the eyes of this old photograph
to the root of the numbers
that show the flower has changed

we want to hold the flower in our hands
each of us a petal
to make sure it lives

do you know what it means to change
something into what it was never supposed to be

do you know what it means to be changed
into someone you were never supposed to be

do you have to search for new waters
new markets will disappear
the way the cities have begun to fall
below the blue

we will need to invent a new language
for the glacier
that is no longer a glacier
the state that is no longer a state
but a piece of something we remembered living once

say you see
what we all are seeing

say it matters to have sky and snow

Vanessa Jimenez Gabb is a founder and an editor of the web-based literary journal Five QuarterlyYou can visit her website at missgabb.tumblr.com.

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