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Autumn of the World

September 16, 2019 By Olivia Rosane Leave a Comment

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens
Suddenly the trees are tinged with flame.
The green is burning at the corners 
like a blade of grass withering beneath a light-directing lens.

Time when the air cools and you sit up,
you make promises to keep your blood pumping,
number in your journal how this year 
you’ll fill the yawning nights with self-made light.

In the Amazon the trees are tinged with flames so bright they’re seen from space,
a massive withering beneath a massive lens
scouring the undergrowth for resources.

Fall’s plans for self-improvement:
1. Exercise more regularly
2. Eat well
3. Spend less time on Twitter
4. Read an hour before bed each night
5. Break your projects into daily chunks; don't wait until the last minute

What do they mean when you’re living in the last minute, now
and you are sleepless on the wrong project? 

The forest makes its own rain.
The trees birth the clouds that nourish them.
But burn enough and the survivors—
standing alone—lose this power. 
They will be bark, stumps, branches only, 
no longer forest. 

Europe traded its forests for conquest. Their descendents follow.
In their skeletons settlers spread war and illness and the lie 
that one could stand alone
like an oak left on an empty hill.
That one should swallow tears or hide them in a pillow
and grow on will and muscled smiles.

Is there time still to learn from forests?
To gather with our honest fear and love
and cry enough to put the fires out?
And turn this seeming autumn
into a second spring?

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Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Poetry

About Olivia Rosane

Olivia Rosane is a poet, freelance writer, and PhD candidate at Cambridge University. Her work has appeared in EcoWatch, YES! Magazine, and Real Life Mag.

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