Roy Herndon Smith
I should be back in school—Greta Thunberg
The canopy is
ragged, all holes opening
to fall’s gentle light.
The hot fullness of
summer drifts slowly towards cold
winter emptiness,
the long night of life
sleeping another binge off
before spring explodes.
The coolness is late
this year; excessive summer
heat rests in oceans,
spawning hurricanes
like bad drunks raging against
the world that births them,
hot days and tyrants,
floods of extinct species and
starving refugees,
plastic and poisons,
rapacious civilization’s
deadly detritus,
broken nurturing
seasonal rhythms. Spring busts
out early—a girl
weeping and raging
for lost childhood—a world with
space and time to grow,
play, learn, love, and rest
under a green canopy
filtering the sun.
dust 