So this poem is called "On the Fifth Day."
It was written on the fifth day of the last presidency, which
was the day that the White House took down from its website
all information about climate change.
And every scientist who worked for the federal government
was told not to speak about their research to the public
unless it was approved by the political head
of their administration.
I took this a bit personally.
A lot of my closest friends are research scientists.
"On the fifth day, the scientists
who studied the rivers were forbidden
to speak or to study the rivers.
The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air, and the ones who
worked for the farmers were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.
Someone, from deep in the Badlands, began posting facts.
The facts were told not to speak and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.
Now it was only the rivers that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,
while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.
The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking of rivers, of boulders and error.
Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.
Bus drivers, shelf stockers, code writers, machinists,
accountants, lab techs, cellists, kept speaking.
They spoke, the fifth day, of silence."