Pina Piccolo

Not that a Conversation Could be Had

1

Not that a conversation could be had

with the winds and their roots

in atmospheric pressure

Not that two molecules of hydrogen

and one of oxygen

could be coaxed

into relinquishing the secret of their phase transition

—why that turning point and not another—

so you could achieve the formula for shepherding

clouds and refreezing the glaciers

assuage El Niño and La Niña

into resuming their usual stream

2

The maelstrom wouldn’t comply

with human preference for symmetry

gentility and construction

wouldn’t bow to the demands

of two-legged convenience

perform their business as usual

perpetuate their role as backdrop

as sounding board

for the moods of disaffected poets

they wouldn’t continue being a normal hindrance to

or promoter of well-being on your way to work

respond to your need for the accessibility and ease

of your shopping experience

whether it’d be a floating market in Bangkok

or one of the myriad LIDLs around the block

3

What was thought as ‘nature’

the ‘environment’ and, then, ‘habitat’ or ‘ecosystem’

What was thought as ’the flora’ and ‘the fauna’

with their extreme specimens

locked up in the Wunderkammer

or the ordinary ones displayed in dioramas

fostering inclusivity

and compassionate collection

answered in kind and

became bent on exacting a display

of panic and disarray

rubber dinghies in the plains

as modest city rivers

wouldn’t obey the levee

as bodies of water buried under cement

claimed re-emergence and resurrection

as rivers of mud overran villages

and swept away the unsuspecting bystander

carbon couldn’t be converted

on the road to Damascus

as poison gases rose in the air

and wolves reclaimed the Exclusionary Area

in Chernobyl, as train wagons spilled

their fiery wares in East Palestine

and dandelions resisted the Roundup

and wouldn’t just wither and die

4

And all over the earth humanhood

turned into a diorama of horror

unrepentant banks, corporations

and charitable foundations

politicians and tyrants resisting green deals

throwing obstacles on carbon conversions

lower on-the-scale humans weighing

on one plate jobs on the other survival

Fentanyl addicted suburbanites

glue sniffing street urchins

specimens of the lesser gods

unemployed household saints

urban tent dwellers and under-the-bridge

tricksters and mavericks with missing teeth

wondered whether they had been cast

for a starring role in the End Times

the Sixth Mass Extinction

the Anthropocene turned rogue

or this too could be weathered

and maybe they need not vie

for the part of the Lone Survivor.

—May 13, 2023