small hands grasping

Felt in the;
rising waters, smelt the burning bridges,
and earth shaken, we stirred.

Even with
all the experiences compiled and stacked up
neatly, labeled by section Gee through Oh
led us to speculate that all evidence was in,
led us to believe that the climate was changing
from what it was,
relative to our great-grandparents,
who lived through some such seasonal disaster
which meant-unpredictable-like problem children
also called
the worst disaster ever (recorded).

And happily after, we can only guess and check
the proofs, taste them for saltiness and watch
the dough rise after we kneaded so much bread
we leave crumbs from the crust
and consume our dumpling mid-
holes
with famished greed, a need to know more,
they add whine and tears.

The ocean was here,
the forest was there
the desert underneath
the seas in skies,

all knotted together with time holes
meant to entangle
flapping gills and arms
but we cannot move
we can no longer breathe
in this sphere
where we pivot one side
of day, the metronome counts down
impressing the wait
on Archimedes lever, impressing the significance
of the date, history made an impression
never remembered the seine before dusk.

The lines have been drawn and tossed out
on tiny planes with too small hands

decades tick us off like second helpings,
we root around for origin, more meaning
ungraspable, unfathomable in Astronomical Units
where impossible came through like starlight
and the concept of climate,
they way things were and should be
for-ever,
as if this were a personal experience
that could;
assure us, prepare us, predict, proclaim, four-
warn, shadow, ground, father, runner, tell-
For
all time,
from no presence of permanence
nailed down.

None could
"handle time on a grand scale."
One would only
assume the worst.


Painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet [Public domain], 'A storm on the Mediterranean coast' (1767) via Wikimedia Commons.