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 Quarterly. You can visit her website at missgabb.tumblr.com.