Ellery Akers: 21 Kids Sue the Government for Not Protecting Them from Climate Change

–Trump Tries to Derail Our Children’s Trust Lawsuit

We can do this.
We can thread a needle with a river and stitch up the drought.
We can dismantle the large, incompetent cars.
We can spill cash out of drawers—all those Presidents,
Washington, Jefferson, Madison—
lying face down in cool steel
and put them to work
to pay for lawyers for the kids
who see their future grated into powder.
We can take the fleece of the clouds
and the fleece of the sheep
and the fleece of the scud of foam on the beach
and throw it across the lies
of the men
who want to fleece us.
The ones who want to lie down in money
and pull its green quilt over their heads
the way apes twist off leaves
to make beds in the forest.
We can do this.
We can remember everything around us—
even the most alien—polystyrene, polypropylene—
has been dug from the ground.
This paper, made from trees and rain.
We can leave the beautiful dark carbon
to ferment in its slots in the ground.
We don’t need to poke out the last of the Permian;
we can love the vault below us and above us,
the sparkles in its rim and its design.
Because we don’t want fracking. We don’t want coal.
Because the coal in the heart of the President
who loves coal is a cool coal, a dead coal.
We can take this damage and make boats out of it.
We can make windmills.
We can make runner beans.
We can take this damage and make orchards.
We can take this damage and make forests.
We can grieve for the forests that are gone
that have been turned into particle boards and trash
instead of loam.
We can speak in the courts. In the streets.
We can take action. We can do this.

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Copyright 2017 Ellery Akers

Ellery Akers books include Practicing the Truth (Autumn House 2014)

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