Sea Levels
low tide we comb the ancient peat for footprints
drowned forest the gull’s cry turns eldritch
undead stumps 4000 years later sprout bladderwrack
our shared excitement at scraps of root-bark
seaside town all the colors of ice cream against the Atlantic
the high street is already lower than the beach
Tisha B’Av just past Orthodox Jewish families stroll the sea wall
land marks us sea levels us
beneath the waves we are saying hello and goodbye
A renku (linked verse) sequence about sea level rise and the drowned Bronze Age forest of the Welsh Ceredigion coast, exposed in recent years by climate change-related storms. Here’s the text, for the benefit of the visually impaired: Process notes
Dave Bonta
SourceLicence:CC BY-SA 4.0