Don't tell me we aren't all connected (The geese are heading to North Carolina) I stand in a cozy room, admiring the harvest of winter squash Safety, I think. Security this Winter. The frost came late, too late for the potatoes, the tomatoes Who were all impacted by blight, A strain of whom is remembered as the killer of one million people, the reason two million emigrated, the reason when you hear ‘potato’, You think ‘Ireland’ But they didn't die of blight. They died because of us. Because humans thought ‘landlord’ and ‘land’ go hand in hand, Claimed terror of terroir was a given right Haven't you heard? There was food in the fields of Ireland, there was food Within reach of starving children But there were British in the fields of Ireland There were bullets, fired to reach those starving children Back in the root cellar I flip drying nettle leaves, the deep green a joy I pluck a few, carry them down the stairs to the kitchen I'll make tea While I text my friend Carson He evacuated two days ago, cramming bunnies and cats into a tightly packed car, driving away from an island to his mother's house Still in Florida Still in the path of Hurricane Milton But with enough booze and weed, he says, to ride out the storm without the panic-inducing fearscape overwhelming his psyche I don't remind him that weed won't stop the waves I am messaging another friend, Alex in Mississippi Alex almost moved to Appalachia, it'd be closer to friends Alex isn't in the path of Hurricane Milton I sip my tea My mother's ancestors smuggled potatoes across the St John River, somewhere near Edmundston, Quebec I don't know them all that well - 200 years puts a damper on those relationships - but what I'm thinking is that they could still rely on frozen rivers, that they were able to ignore climate change They weren’t calculating which varieties to harvest before blight hit their seedstock Because an Autumn drought in Northern New York is a consequence of colonialism And an Autumn drought brings blight But I know some of my ancestors, at least, are why I am here. Not just here (sitting) - but here, where the culture in which I pretend to live is killing my potatoes As surely as the British killed children They were fracturing human to non-human relationships long before climate change Splintered the ecological patterns That would have stopped blight in their tracks Long before I cried in the fields Long before I cried in the fields So now, the government is releasing fact-checking articles about Hurricane Helene A category four major hurricane with one hundred and twenty mile an hour winds That slammed into Southeast North America with an intensity not seen in nineteen years The storms are getting stronger The climate is changing faster The human death toll is at two hundred thirty and rising And Milton hasn't yet hit I will keep calling, keep texting, keep growing food I will send care packages I will build relationships I will break The geese are heading to North Carolina (North Carolina is under water)
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I know poetry isn't everyone's jam - I normally don't write a lot of poetry, but I'm particularly proud of this piece. To summarize: it's about connections, climate change and colonialism, inspired by the migrating geese who are heading to a North Carolina that is flooded by hurricanes human activity caused. It's about how I love the world and my heart is breaking as I watch capitalism destroy us.