Water drains from bottle enters body to be
rationed among organs and cells   another liquid
day begins in another year of drought

A singular heron flies over   no wings or line
of sight   just a honk in the sky on its way to or from
its roosting tree and crusted stultified canal

How long can this go on   this back and forth   this
expansion and shrinking with expansion losing out
and shrinking becoming the pervasive mode

I’ve read that Great Salt Lake has lost much
of its greatness   down two-thirds and soon to be
flats of toxic dust   my daughter’s home is there

The Salton Sea bodes perilous, too   a puff   a gust
and it’s haz-mat bathing suits beside the pools of
Palm Springs, La Quinta, Rancho Mirage   sell now

Satellite imaging (wildfire smoke permitting) shows
anemic snowpacks   glaciers advancing backwards
in reverse time-lapse   death march of Antarctic ice

Vegas lawns   Phoenix spas   Valley homeowners
flouting restrictions a few hundred miles away from
sudden withered desert towns that tumbleweed away

Next wave refugee camps will be environmental
the political causes exhausted, baked, starved beyond
denial   Why don’t they act? is posited from space

“Potential environmental nuclear bomb” / “A disaster”
“We’re at the precipice” / “It can actually happen”
A sip of water   a singular heron calls in morning fog

— Jim Natal

In our ECO LIT series, Red Canary Magazine dedicates space for established writers and emerging voices to imagine better ways of being.