About this Poem:

This a lucid companion poem to my Utah Lake poem. The State of Utah was settled and built beside a famous ancient inland sea. A sea troubled by the impacts of development, water diversions, and climate change. When this Great Salt Lake evaporates away as the last humble lake and neighbor to our society, we may finally take notice. We will notice that it took much better care of us—than we did of it. And its loss will undoubtedly affect our health and prosperity in ways we are only beginning to fathom—a realization we will grasp long after we have had a chance to maintain its greatness.

I used to spread deep—in my proud reflections
beneath an endless desert sunset
dripping in streaks of tangerine and ruby
buoyant in salted memories of life
a vast inland sea with divine potential
anchoring horizons to a fresh—promised land
where refugees settled—escaping persecution

but now I am worn beyond ancient bones
hollowed out in petrifying depression
to a withering squint of Great Salt Lake
and I no longer feel so great—
I’m discarded—a dying remnant of the forgotten
who fed winter skies with masses of snow
and energized rivers—overhead and underneath

my flat pewter greens and crimson salts
vanish in fuming echoes of a fading vale
a white flux of bitter dearth smears my sad story
as avarice suffocates me in angry climates
I am withering in a strange time
that drifts as a molecule of earth-time
inside a generation that bares no mercy
and chains me in vacant steel clouds of denial

your ancestors labored to escape here
to bring me a lasting prosperity
but my dwindling source of cold water
is drawing upon its last bucket
my skeleton is vaporizing into mists
of a daunting world—void of sympathy
yet overflowing in self-preservation

I once thought you could rescue me
heal my splaying shores of encrusted salt
with transfusions of a watery melody
remedies that could also save your health
but with all your learning and keen intellect
you neglected nature’s compassion
for you and for me

I shudder in wakes of gloomy dawns
speculators and poachers have diverted
and drained the sanctity of my spirit
as I weep dry tears of dust—swallowed
from a century of adulterating industry
the fevered fervors of my mother earth
will eventually carry my sands of ages
into the promises of another hopeful land

so—are you prepared to join the others
children of creation—who are fleeing home
because of a crisis of climate chaos
who once had hope in people and authority
but are left alone in the bitter ravages of
tempests, fires, floods, and dearth
battles that inundate the poor and stricken
in a politics that they do not understand

I pray your romance over verdant sods
and exclusive golf courses of exclusion
wilt beside my persecuted sacrifice
for as my timid shores gently ebb
into shadows of your mega-manic metallic noise
and my wandering tranquility evaporates
into the lavender realm of lost lakes—
please grasp what my lake effect truly means
while you prepare to become refugees—
all over again