Today's poem is by Diana Woodcock

We Are Not Gods
       

One extreme event, September 2016,
and the second largest Emperor penguin
colony, Antarctica, collapsed—
most severe El Niño in sixty years,
strong winds and record-low sea ice,
the chicks not yet fledged. This is how close

we are to the edge. July 2018, researchers
announce the world's largest colony of King
penguins on the subantarctic Pig Island has shrunk
by nearly 90% these last three decades.
Jeremiah's words echo in my memory,
              The whole land . . . a desolation.

The warming, the sacredness of all things,
the eggs, the fledglings, fire's holy
flame remains beyond awake.
The vividness of a gleaming blue glacier—
the sound of its melting, calving enough
to break the heart as it falls apart.

Melting of the ice shields soon to
accelerate, sea levels continue to rise.
Oh to realize we are not gods.
Too many coral reefs bleached and dying.
Dead zones spreading like a cancer
in the oceans. Marine defaunation.

Not like falcons of the Hyperborean cliffs,
nesting far above the sea in a show of audacity
and stamina, vulnerable penguins cannot
climb cliffs as high winds whip across the ice.
Still, a ray of hope: many of those Emperors
moved themselves 35 miles to the south,

joining a colony there where penguins
since have increased tenfold. Behold,
we are not gods. What if it's already
too late? Which is why I wake
at dawn, frightened by the dream,
the cliff edge, the falling.

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Copyright © 2023 Diana Woodcock All rights reserved
from Holy Sparks
Paraclete Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission