Climate Change

I used to go around in emeralds
flashy as the light off the Indian Ocean, 

birds-of-paradise in my hair. 
                   You beguiled 
                   like Sargasso,
the only sea with no coastline.  

                         
                    I remember the first time. 

You picked up my scent of wild grapes two miles off-shore,
rolled in like the Haar fog off the North Sea 
and wrapped me in your arms. 

Now we’ve gone and torn a hole in our troposphere.       

Since we last gyred, 
the herds of the mighty icebergs graze

from Disko Bay down to Disappear. 

Winds of the world carry the motherland
in handfuls over the mountains:
tramontane, sirocco, the dirty pampero.

Come back to me, dear. 

You'll be the Sea of Chukchi joining the Bering.

I'll be the strait of the little Minch 

in the Seas of the Hebrides.

I'll see your Denali and raise you Kilimanjaro, 

my tropical Amazon to your blooming phytoplankton.

You're my polar front: I'm your doldrum.

The whole world’s placing bets 

down at the tracks 
of the Horse Latitudes.