The hubris of human beings
Trying to survive
The wrath of a wounded planet
Hurricane Dorian
Flattening the Bahamas
Hovering near the Florida shore
Some people defy evacuation
Hunker in their defiance
Behind gated windows
And bottles of water
Expecting to be spared
Others pack their cars with children
Stalling along a highway
One-way out of this peninsula
To get the hell out of there
Safer in the Berkshires
For our time will come
I watch the coverage
Over-zealous meteorologists
Exchange with hyper newscasters
The eye, cone, mile-an-hour winds
Surges of ocean revolt
Reverence for such unleashed power
A symptom, no, outcome
Of climate change
This, just the beginning of the season
As they say
When warm water rises, condenses, and swirls
In perilous bodies of liquid in the air
While human life on land
Culprits to our own destruction
Talk of how to rebuild
Taunting nature’s inclination
To cleanse itself
Aerial images
Miles of crushed structures
Submerged vehicles
Zoom in — a floating girl with her dog
Up to her chest in water
How can this not be
The beginning, not just of a season
But the end of the human world
On a planet that I am rooting for
Deborah Golden Alecson
September 3, 2019
