Dear Human at the Edge of Time
By Cassandra Bousquet
It is even worse than they say. Do you remember that day?
Orange sky, like a bright tangerine. It’s not a cliche because this isn’t something you ever thought would happen
President Obama had said years ago: the sun will come up in the morning.
Republican or Democrat, the sun will come up in the morning.
And it didn’t. Darkness. Heavy with fear.
“Someday we will be with our friends again,” said the Queen.
You didn’t know what to believe. You were too tired for tears.
Dear human at the edge of time,
When the sky rained ash, what music were you listening to?
What book did you read when wildfires ravaged and a woman let seven families and a bunch of chickens in her house?
“Brown is the new green”
“Reduce, reuse, recycle”
It is a vicious cycle
False promises flicker in our eyes and die
We burn bright and angry and orange like the sky
Dear human at the edge of time,
The edge is not the end. We still have time to try.
Cassandra Bousquet hails from Brisbane, California and is a sophomore Creative Writing Major at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Her work is featured in the collaborative poem, "Breathe," which appeared in Nature & Culture 2021 Festival Book (Copenhagen: Red Press Kulturhuset Islands Brygge & Københavns Kommune, 2021).
"Dear Human at the Edge of Time" was first published in the poetry anthology of the same title, edited by Aileen Cassinetto, Luisa A. Igloria, and Jeremy S. Hoffman. The anthology was published by Paloma Press on September 15, 2023 (the day of a Global Climate Strike), and is a companion piece to the congressionally-mandated Fifth National Climate Assessment. The book is available here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/dear-human-at-the-edge-of-time-poems-on-climate-change-in-the-united-states-luisa-a-igloria/20274895
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