Blue lakes dot a parched landscape.
Along both coasts, cerulean sea and ocean mist.
Water behind me, I see sand expand
a red desert floor.
Last night, with face to fertile sky,
I witnessed the rise
of the new moon, orange tinged
in the fading light.
What looked like stars
revealed themselves as bling.
I wonder at the electorate in a red shift
choosing a delusion to lead them.
I choose Polaris, follow the path
of the Drinking Gourd
that guided a multitude
towards freedom.
With a trembling hand, I circle the 20th
of January on my calendar, the date when
northern constellations will be sent south
and snow will fall at the equator
while Los Angeles crumbles in flame,
a lead foot fueling nature’s destruction.
On that day, will they pack the buses
with children born here too?
I console myself with words
of Thich Nhat Hanh: accept
the challenge “to witness injustice…
and not allow it to consume our light.”
Though obscured by smoke,
the North Star still shines.
–
Poet’s Note
“As I watched red overtake the spots of blue on the newscaster’s election map, It was like watching an accident in slow motion. But it wasn’t an accident. It was the result of a concerted campaign that is moving our country deeper into conservatives territory. In the morning, as I tried to puzzle out the pulse of the nation, this poem arose.”
–
Susana Praver-Pérez is a poet, visual artist, and an associate editor at Poets Reading the News. Susana’s first full-length book of poetry, Hurricanes, Love Affairs, and Other Disasters received the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (2022). Her second full-length collection, Return Against the Flow, (Black Lawrence Press, 2024), was chosen by both Ms. Magazine and NYU’s Latinx Project as one of the best 30+ poetry books of the year. Susana divides her time between Oakland, California and San Juan, Puerto Rico and writes through the lens formed in the liminal space between languages, cultures, and geographies.
