*
—after “Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now”
by Matthew Olzmann
*
Though the bees are dead, we still have flies.
They’re good pollinators. They keep
what manages growth. What doesn’t,
they manage in stillness.
We still write about the grass—
its still, diagonal march beneath wind and rain,
still climbing the hills that hold our dead—
Though the sun grew scorching,
the grass grew resistant. We used to
hate that. Resistance. We used to believe
nothing should slow us down.