Selections from the author of Industrial Oz: Ecopoems

Near Paisley, Oregon

• the ancient lake’s giant
• redband  trout
• fin small creeks.

• Among swirling
• ice sculptures
• in thawing Chewaucan River,

• I daydreamed their lateral lines
• as one long red sunset
• after a bad storm,

• Buddhist monks
• pushing children
• on swings.

Punchbowl Hike Meditation

• For 30 years
• I’ve talked to myself
• about climate change
• but now everyone is.

• When you think that long
• you feel for individuals —
• Nina in flower garden,
• sparrow on fence.

Geo-Poem

• 66 million years ago in the Cenozoic era
• seawater filled these valleys
• with bass hovering like piñatas unaware

• of wagon trains, cattle ranches, asphalt roads,
• signs to Fort Rock and Christmas Valley
• just around the pluvial corner.

• Instead, bass knew only the language
• of hunger, sex, territory, blankly staring
• like men today watching TV.

Scott T. Starbuck, co-creative writing coordinator at San Diego Mesa College, has a new book of climate-change poems, Industrial Oz: Ecopoems. Starbuck read poems from it to over 500 climate activists at a December 12 Rally for Climate Justice in Balboa Park.