A poem for the #ClimateVisionaries Artists’ Project for Greenpeace
is it worth months of hazardous travel? to see what happens when I pour it into that other ocean. we can’t know otherwise.
p r o g r e s s
the third and last night the stranger stayed with us
she said as a warning:
“on the other side of the land I crossed to get here
lies another ocean
a smaller sea than yours but more salty.”
she licked her lips as she said it:
“don’t go there”
*
I watched as he pushed the silver flask
under the surface to fill it up
with few mouthfuls of seawater
“why? and is it worth months of hazardous travel?”
“to see what happens when I pour it into that other ocean.
we can’t know otherwise.”
a necklace of bubbles
escaped from the flask’s slender body
as liquid replaced air
—
As we begin this critical new year in the fight against climate change, Greenpeace is giving over space on our channels to authors and artists working within the climate crisis. Acclaimed author Lauren Groff prompted artists and thinkers to write essays and art about climate change for us, and so every day this month we’ll have a new piece from that project that addresses, in some form, what it means to create in the midst of this crisis. The forces fueling climate change have the most powerful networks in history pumping out their devastating propaganda at unimaginable scale. It’s going to take everything we have from all of us – imagination equal to the task – to create the climate we’ll need to stop the crisis.
We need these voices and these visions, but they won’t be enough. We need you, too. We encourage you to check back on the Climate Visionaries Artists’ Project every day to see what’s new, and to join the conversation by sharing your work on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and tagging it #ClimateVisionaries.