They call it climigration, these
experts on vast shoreline loss
and islands swept by rising seas.
So far it’s minimal. In Papua
New Guinea, a string of seven atolls
are awash. Three thousand souls
are being relocated to a
famous island, Bougainville,
wrested from Japan in World War II.
The tundra that protects the Eskimo
village of Newtok from the Bering Sea
is gradually eroding as the glue
of permafrost beneath it thaws
and arctic water levels rise.
They’re going down and so
are all the rest of us—
Florida to Bangladesh
Malaysia to Manhattan
where lamplit Central Park will lurch
with Lady Liberty, her torch
aloft, Chinatown, Hell’s Kitchen,
SoHo, Harlem, and the Bronx
into the Atlantic Ocean.
Despite outcries of purest angst
dikes won’t save the playing field
so blow a kiss to this drowned world.
The gods have spoken: yield.
from And Short the Season, W.W. Norton, 2014
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