…Send each of your words

like a last letter before execution,

a call carved on a prison wall.

you have no right to lie…

- Blaga Dimitrova, “Ars Poetca”

 

Think of your poem as a beacon.

Shine one word at a time

westward where licorice dolphins

play tag with ships and coral reefs

shimmer under surf.

Growing brighter toward

the oncoming night, let your beam

take note of all the dangers.

With the certainty of being heard

send each of your words.

 

Think of yourself as a keeper

surrounded by water,

watching strands of seaweed pearls

glistening under your searchlight.

Look hard at the creatures that swim,

cling to rocks, float in the ocean;

tomorrow they could be gone.

Make your every image live

for the coming generations

like a last letter before execution.

 

If we are headed for destruction

the sea would hold to the last.

Can you envision the poison?

Every city a landscape of rubble,

every forest smoldering ash.

Then imagine the whole

ocean oil-choked and stagnant,

pelicans shrouded in scum.

Speak!

Make the grief in your soul

a call carved on a prison wall.

 

Shine the beam of your lantern

straight to the core.

Tell it clean – no time to revise;

how the salt marsh breeds life,

how sea urchins pulse,

how a coral reef lives and dies.

If execution looms in the shallows,

record your vision of “now,”

you are posterity’s scribe.

You have no right to lie.

 

 

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