I. First your body lets go of its habitual temperature. 

The waters within you cool to the waters outside. 

This is the moment of surrender, 

like the first of the Twelve Steps.

Then your feet lift and you return to a horizontal life,

freed from the hubris of uprightness. 

This is the moment of physical humility. 

Your hands revert to flippers. 

"An organ of propulsion and not of manipulation,"

 as Snowball tells the birds in Animal Farm. 

This is the moment of ahimsa. 

The quizzical dragonfly buzzes by your head.

You pass a seated frog that reveals itself  

a clump of seaweed, with bubble algae for eyes. 

This is the moment of intellectual humility. 

Cognizant nescience. Socratic ignorance.

Your breathing has become 

just that little bit more conscious.

This is the moment of memento mori.

II. Earth would wither into husk

in the plots of Elon Musk.

Squeeze the juice and leave the scars.

Make another life on Mars.

Let's abandon human fails.

Heed the wisdom of the whales.

Back to sea, before the Fall.

Maybe that would save us all.

 

 

About the Author: Cheryl Caesar is an ex- expatriate, having lived in Europe for 25 years before returning to her native Michigan. She teaches writing at Michigan State University, and serves as president of the Michigan College English Association. Her chapbook of protest poetry Flatman is available from Amazon, and her poems and artwork appear in both volumes of Words across the Water (Fractal Edge Press). In 2024, she won first prize for prose in the My Secret Lansing contest sponsored by the Lansing Arts Council.