Climate Change Poem 16

Volunteer cherry tree, July 2011

Two global events are occurring on September 24, 2011:

1. Moving Planet, a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis.


2. 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a demonstration/celebration of poetry to promote serious social, environmental, and political change.


I thought: Why not do both?

Barring an emergency, I am posting from midnight to midnight, one poem per hour (at any time during that hour). That's starting from 00:00-01:00 and ending at 23:00-24:00 Eastern Time today.

All the poems are sonnets. Each takes its cue from an article dealing with climate change. The articles had been posted beginning on September 15 -- the date of the 24-hour Climate Reality Project that inspired me to do this -- to September 19, the day I drafted the twenty-fourth poem.

The poem for Hour 16 takes its cue from "Receding Sea Ice Chases Walruses to Alaska Coast" (Wynne Parry, LiveScience, Sept. 16, 2011).

Waiting Room

When twenty thousand walruses or more
Had made their exodus from Chukchi Sea,
They settled on a north Alaskan shore.
Their offbeat movements caused perplexity,

For normally they camp upon the ice
That settles near a continental shelf.
That shallow water offers them a slice
Of dining habitat, which in itself

Yields clams and snails and worms on which to feed.
The promised ice has simply stayed away.
On land, they face the risk of a stampede
If startled. Noisy planes are kept at bay.

Their mass migration patterns fluctuate
While for their frozen home of old, they wait.

Audio (1:12):

Part of the Solution website (chosen at random)
Environmental Defense Fund
Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other JourneysPromote Your Page Too Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.), Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite, Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny, Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines, Vol. 5, Deviations: TelZodo, Vol. 6 and conclusion: Deviations: Second Covenant.Free downloads at the Deviations website (click here for alternate link), Smashwords, and Manybooks.

Proud participant, Operation E-Book Drop (provides free e-books to personnel serving overseas. Logo from the imagination and graphic artistry of K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman); Books For Soldiers (ships books and more to deployed military members of the U.S. armed forces); and Shadow Forest Authors (a fellowship of authors and supporters for charity, with a focus on literacy). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.