Anna Cates
This Is the Poem
I would have penned
Had they not plugged
A power-hungry data center
In the middle of a fallow field,
Brutally rezoned light industrial.
This is the stanza
I would have scribed,
For the doe and the fawn
Who don’t run away, but, unafraid,
Only pause and peer up at me.
This is the segment I can’t compose,
For my throat is coarse,
And my mind dried up
Like the creek that once gently
Flowed into a mighty river.
This is Odysseus saying,
“You tried to destroy my world,”
And then arrowing out his revenge
Against a pack of worthless suitors.
This is not even wind in dry grass.
This is not even a lifeless scarecrow.
This is monstrous shadow.
too warm the globe
too cold the stars
our engines all awhirl
the insect-tiny ticking
of “relative” time
About the Author
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through Cyberwit, Prolific Press, Red Moon Press, and Wipf and Stock. Her short-form poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio, with her two beautiful kitties.