Marigolds or roses?
Dahlias and forget-me-nots?
Easter lilies?
Like the ones that grew on the hill
In Charlottesville
Flowers blossoming in the Arctic
That’s the gist
(Antarctica’s Floral Awakening: How Climate Change is Transforming the Continent’s Ecosystem[1])
If you gravitate
To pain
What good is it to know
The name of what ends you
Would the dinosaurs care
What their asteroid is called
(The Chicxulub impactor, so you know)
Did you forget
That flowers mark death?
Funerals and gravesites
Wreaths above closed caskets
The best poisons taste sweet
Soon, maybe, those northern reaches will hold
Humid nights and honeysuckle
Cicadas lumbering towards the surface
Distant memories of ice
In their song
[1] Singh, Geetika. "Antarctica’s Floral Awakening: How Climate Change is Transforming the Continent’s Ecosystem." Earth.org, 5 Oct. 2023, https://earth.org/antarcticas-floral-awakening-how-climate-change-is-transforming-the-continents-ecosystem/
Elizabeth Markley is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She has published several short stories and poems across various literary journals, including Haunted Waters Press, The Feminine Collective, and the Raw Art Review. When not writing, she is kept busy by her three children under the age of eight. You can read about her writing adventures at elizabethmarkley.com.
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