Hands Like Wings, Dancing Upon the Air

by Goran Lowie

I.

There is so very little time left–
            my father never lived to see the usurpation of the fossil fuel empires
and the treaties of the climate wars,
           fallen with the decomposing trees, something else taking root in his place.

He never gave up the fight—
           his feet stomping the violence cradled by their hands, his fingers untying
the knots of our extended life,
            muddled beliefs conflicting with an ever-estranging world.

II.

He was never more than Dada to me–
            a gentle statue fiddling his prop, wistfully playing sounds of spring
as he paused the preparation of soil
            and learned the lessons taught by the seasons and the valley. 

I remember when his arms embraced the skies
            of our valley, our farms, our forests, proclaiming they weren’t for us
to claim as our own—simply nomads temporarily
            relying on the kindness of the valley, taking and giving both.

III. 

It was after his death the stories started getting told—
            my father, progenitor of the climate wars in younger times:
            frozen hurricanes destroyed in celebration of the sun,
            city gardens separated by walls, meticulously maintained,
            sharp, acrid smells and the silence of the birds.

And then, the change that followed. A man under construction—

My father, listening, learning the terms of balance:
            sunset raying between trunks of apple trees,
            a city adapting, a woodland regrowing,
            birds singing in the wind. 

IV.     

Stories told in the shadowy corners of a tavern.
            Old handbooks and historical documents.
Images of flooded lakes and scooped-up hills.
             Uncensored proof of past mistakes.
Our hands reaching out
            like wings dancing upon the air.

Goran Lowie is an award-winning aro/ace poet from rural Belgium with poems in Strange Horizons, Heartlines Spec, Radon Journal and others. He writes poetry in his second language and is a high school teacher in his day job. You can follow him on Twitter @goranlowie.