Challenging Poetry

Kiribati: Greeting the New Year

we see the year first.
it rises over the ocean,
and passes the line
that turns today
into tomorrow—
a crooked line
tearing the Pacific
in two, like a child
with scissors.
we see the new year,
as the ground
shifts beneath our feet,
dissolving.
soon, all that’s left
of our land
will be salt water
and drowning.
then, where
will the new year come?


Author's Note ▼

The two facts that really stood out to me when I read about Kiribati were that the international date line actually curves around it so that the entire nation exists in the same day, and that it is one of the lowest groups of islands in the Pacific, and so more in danger from rising oceans. The two thoughts came together into this.