by Fan Ogilvie
Who knows why these things happen.
One minute you say goodbye to your husband
At the hospital. The next after a two mile
Walk to your Guest House you fall on your face
On the rough gray sidewalk. Bruises and blood
Decorate the nose the mouth the chin and eyes.
I hide for a few days in the Guest House, no dinner
Just CNN and MSNBC until I am overfed on the Trial.
A country I want to believe in shrivels in partisan
Blather and I nurse my wounds with Arnica and Advil.
But bruises created by Boston’s own climate change
Of hurricane force winds blackened skies throwing
Down to the ground those of us walking in its way
Are marks of real change in our lives, lives once
Concerned only with showers and sun. Not now.
We fantasize all buildings on Newbury Street collapsing
And those on Commonwealth Ave., up to Fenway.
That wind, those dark clouds, could have greeted
The ailing passengers of the Mayflower in Plymouth.
But much more is going on in our time. My bruises
Are testament to how rough our times can be
And will be as we ignore suggestions to improve climate.
“I know you won’t want to report about this
I know you won’t want to talk about this
But I assure you I will continue to repeat these numbers
Until you do.” –Greta Thunberg
Fan Ogilvie has published two books of poems, “You” and “Easinesses Found,” several chapbooks, including “The Other Side of the Hill” and “In this Place,” and a memoir, “Knot a Life.” She is planning to publish a poetry dialogue between herself and Sappho. She lives in West Tisbury with Robin Motherwell Ogilvie, her Irish Russell terrier, and her husband Donald. She facilitates the Cleaveland House Poets poetry workshop, and reads poems regularly at the M.V. Center for Living.