What Will Be?

What Will Be?

  Will lahars descend from Mt. Rainier's glaciers,
  And spring rains mass to flood the Red?
  Will Huracán's rage, or Tāwhirimātea's,
  Descend to leave stalwarts like Noah dead?

  Our Earth, under delicate blue-mist skin,
  Is pocked at Chicxulub and Chesapeake.
  Its continents drift and its plates fold in
  As huge rifts and oceans spread and shrink.

  Shall we stand at the summit of Cumbre Vieja?
  Settle where the rain-swelled river moils?
  There is limestone karst and the San Andreas
  To select as prime residential soils.

  Shall we transmute forests to ash and gases
  And sweep all our refuse into the brine?
  Shall we dodge the defense to throw our passes
  Or rush our tackles across the line?

  Destiny leaves us plenty of choice
  To reject, or listen to, advice.
  For Jesus, it was temptation's voice;
  For Robert Frost, it was Fire and Ice.

  Pale, budding leaves, the faint scents of flowers,
  Birds weaving nests on a sun-blessed day,
  Could it be, after such mild April showers,
  A northeaster could rip it all away?

  My life has been nurtured by gentle currents
  Moving sands from swells that barely break.
  What unknown, what fateful, dreadful occurrence
  Might make me die before I wake?

-- Leslie G. Harper
    March 27, 2009