Which Baby To Save

Hold your breath: a song of climate change

Bob Hicok poem selected and introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove, August 23, 2018 (NY Times)

“…[T]he excuses for inaction in Bob Hicok’s parable of environmental greed rapidly rise to a rousing chorus of denial. W.H. Auden’s “The Age of Anxiety” has devolved into an age of outrage whose citizenry has grown adept at justifying procrastination to the point of changing course to suit its comfort. Hicok’s exhortation to accept responsibility for our future falls on conveniently stoppered ears: The final line, with its rhyming monosyllables, lands like a judge’s gavel…

Hold your breath: a song of climate change

The water’s rising

but we’re not drowning yet.

When we’re drowning

we’ll do something.

When we’re on our roofs.

When we’re deciding between saving

the cute baby or the smart baby.

When there aren’t enough helicopters

or news crews to circle

over everyone. When sharks

are in the streets. When people

are dying. When people

with wine cellars

are dying. We’ll build dams

and dikes, put stilts

on our V-8s and golf courses,

cut down anyone

who cuts down a tree,

paint our Jesuses

green, we’ll grow wings, we’ll go

to the moon. Soon.

click here for more

Tweet