Meet Me in the Woods

love in the time of the climate crisis.

1.
my second cousin,
iris, is
a beautiful,
curious little tree creature
and is about to celebrate
her fourth birthday.

i look into her eyes-
they're brown and that's important-
and she asks me about the animals
as i tour her around the zoo.

i worked there for a summer,
minding armies of little feet
just like hers.

the children would ask me
why the animals
were hunted in the wild
or why the rainforests
burned as hellfire
crawled through
tectonic places and surfaced.

i could not tell them
all the things we had done.

2.
how can i explain to iris
that at the
ripe old age of eighteen
i am terrified to have children
because the
temptation of convenience
was too daunting for us all
and suddenly i am unsure
as to whether or not
my future children will be born
wearing oxygen masks.

perhaps that's optimistic.
maybe we will take no action
whatsoever,
and it will be my generation
to be the first to suffocate;
hers never stood a chance.

i watch her read her storybook
about the loon and the moon,
and i picture her wearing
the oxygen mask,
standing within the ruined north—
amongst the sulfide mines
where we once canoed,
amongst the empty savannahs
where frozen pines once towered,
amongst oiled pits
where lake superior once was—
and suddenly i am ready for war.

3.
i never wanted to be an activist,
my love,
i never wanted any of this.
but my draft number
was up and i must fight
because love in the time
of the climate crisis
means that i must give
every piece of myself
to the cause
to protect my family.

4.
at night,
as we lay in our bed,
my love, i wonder
where will our bed will lay
when the seas rise to the window?

my love, what will we eat
when the berries rot
into the barren soil
and the quarry
fall from the sky?

my love, what will we drink
when the great lakes
and the mighty mississippi
run black with oil,
red with blood,
blue with salt,
and then dry altogether?

my love, where will we roam
when all the refuges
have been drilled,
all the great forests turned
to ash and weeds,
all the mountains
privatized and sold off,
piece
by
piece.

my love, where can i touch you
when all the world's children
are born with burning skin
and bleeding eyes,
and they are starting to scar
upon your cheek
(you ask me what is wrong.
you don't see what haunts me.
you are no longer safe from death.)

5.
my question is this:
how can i
protect those who i love
in the time of the climate crisis?

how can i save the farmers
who raised me
and the lovers who saved me
when we do not demand
that which is necessary
and each day that passes,
i swear to god,
my back becomes more sore.

6.
love when i look at you,
it's the most terrible
twist of the knife.

loving you
means
i must leave you.

loving you,
it means
i live my life
in meetings and offices
and in hearings,
sleeping in bus terminals,
train stations,
and airline gates.

loving you
means i am removed
from you,
distant because
the nights spent
applying for grants
and writing letters
and researching
temperature thresholds
and sending out alerts,
love,
it's making me so sleepless,
so tired.

the worst part
of fighting
for your homeland
is that you
must abandon it.

7.
i was arrested
in the us capitol
one month after i
turned eighteen
and nineteen
others
were hauled away too.

as i cried and shook
they sang my name
and i love them
more than i will ever love anyone
and i had never realized
before
that when it comes down
to it
a revolution
is simply a broken cry
into the darkness,
and then a call back—
"you do not walk alone."

8.
we are picking
up the pieces.
we are healing
each other.
and we are
healing the earth.

and as the world burns
around us,
the greatest sin
would be to despair.