Earth Day Poem for Amelia

I was going to tell the story of how you drew a sign

that read globl warming is hapning please help

with two circular, frowning polar bears

and speech bubbles: Help!

and how I made twelve copies of the sign

and spent an evening helping

you post them around the neighborhood.

As the sun set, this won’t help

you said, tired and hungry.

These signs won’t make anyone help.

But on Facebook someone posted Child global warming sign—Thanks!

and said she’d walk to work more, find ways to help.

I was going to make the observation

that many poems about climate change happen

as apology letters to children.

We’re sorry, we write, for what is happening:

the live feed video we see at the airport shows

icecaps melting, we watch it happening.

I was going to list facts like solar power was showcased

at the 1878 World Fair but coal had happened

already, so to speak, taken hold. I was going to write that

to be female, like the earth, is to sometimes be told what is happening

to you is not happening. I was going to say speak,

daughter, keep speaking.