HUMMINGBIRD
It’s congenital
we say
to the universe
We were born
with a fluttering heart
a hairline fracture
the surgeons couldn’t place
The Antarctic’s a fractal split
under
its own weight
Larsen C’s cracked deep enough
to trace through the window
of a space shuttle
wide enough we’ve lost
the winds to stitch it back
Then the last 12 miles of glacier
pinning it
to the continent tore
Like a lost sailor
it gave itself to the sea
A boulder cast into a pond
Nameless boy
swim faster
The lifeguard’s asleep on the tower
and the helicopters
have all been swallowed
by waves The children build castles
over the bodies of sharks the sun
has hardened their eyes to gold
don’t breathe yet now
thrash your hands
against coralline and limestone
quell your imploding lungs
you are alone and the
water’s surface
is farther away than you
remember
Nameless boy don’t panic
a hummingbird
flying north hovers steady
over the water’s surface
dipping its beak into the salt
it siphons it up like sourwood nectar.
—Poets Respond
May 7, 2017
__________
Ali Sohail: “This poem is in response to the recent discovery of a thousand-foot wide fissure in the Antarctic ice-shelf Larsen C. A portion of it is expected to break away with significant ecological impact. There are few things that affect us all on a global scale, and climate change is one of them. As an individual, I feel as powerless as a child standing on a shoreline, watching an approaching wave about to crash and break at my feet. I still hold to optimism, however, and have tried to inject a redemptive spirit in my work.”
