Global Climate, Change?

me and asa did a workshop today at the local bookstore, building off Prof. Gillian's 450 model. this is one of two poems that came out of it. I think worked out pretty well, so we might do more in the near future. let me know if you might be interested in joining us next time!


Global Climate, Change?

I am speculating on the power
of technology to save the world,
listening to an article on NPR about
the latest and greatest answer to
global climate change, which consists
of having huge quantities of dust
rocketing straight up into the atmosphere,
and i am thinking about newton, how
he stated with such certainty that gravity
will return to us anything that we send skyward,
and I am thinking about asthma, the coughs
which wracked my chest as a child in
direct proportion to the pollen count
and i am wondering what it would feel like
to choke to death on progress.

I am speculating on the power
of technology to save the world,
while the scientist on the radio is
explaining how his project will
mimic the cooling effects of
a volcano, but on a grand scale.
i am still stuck on the small scale
remembering Mount Vesuvius
hitting Pompeii, the way a city
was mummified for centuries
in a matter of moments, and how
the marketplace must have smelled
of cooked fruit and scorched wood,
picturing the bodies buried beneath
a fine coating of dust, and thinking
that is about as cold as you can get

I am speculating on the power
of technology to save the world,
wondering if the dinosaurs also
did it to themselves, whether
their answer to a scarcity of food
was to call down sections of the sky
to scare it out of hiding. I am thinking
about big change, because i prefer
small change, i feel much more
comfortable with that, because
as i double click the reconnect
button on my computer screen I
cannot help thinking about human error.

so i wonder:
if we could use remote controls to
reconfigure fireflies, turning them
on and off at a whim, and with
a single button push create
geometric shapes out of their
living luminescence, would we
still spend an hour's staring to
admire all the angles?