In Fewer Years Than I Am Old

The Texas plains have emptied out.

The people all are gone.

New Mexico's well are dry, and

all who could have said goodbye

a few of the old ones hang on still

high in the mountains they dwell

collecting what little snow

falls in the winter, harvesting the rain.

The weather folk foretold the end

many years ago, but like the rest we

reveled in our ignorance and told ourselves

the lies that drought would come and go,

climate change denied.

And now Polaris rises high over a desert

once deep in ice above a continent

still shrinking borders slowly fading

into a warm sea creeping inland

submerging empty streets once filled

with humanity that no longer exists

as we were.