wildscape. literary journal

Letter from My Future Self, after Climate Change
by Zachariah Claypole White

I hope this letter finds you	       as a forest finds the river,

that you are dancing 	when it opens		  please

will you describe for me	    a dogwood? It has been years

since blooming. Yes     fire-season	   will be lullaby-thick, but 

follow our grandmother’s lilt     down those sloped

gardens	          see how goldenrod flowers

through the windows of her name.  	   I have known
 
that wire-twisted angel,	      collected subway maps, and all

the wings of polyethylene. We are winter-stubborn 		

as a wheelbarrow,		         beautiful as an oil spill or drought; 

here:      the feathered storm	     the country of hawks	

              the nettled fingers of boy	    hood.

You may not understand     but today I dreamt 

every refinery a church’s bell, and every museum

a woodpecker’s nest. 		  Outside,

Jeeva gathered cherry blossoms 	 in silver bowls of rain,

leg tapping to Nina Simone;

                           the bees too were singing. 

about the author // Zachariah Claypole White