Salt Flats in Andes

Solastalgia *
by Valerie Losell
Inspired by the painting "Salt Flats in Andes" by Laura di Valentin

*term to describe the psychological distress and grief
caused by feelings of loss and powerlessness to control changes in one's physical environment caused by industrial development, natural disasters, loss of species and
landscapes due to climate change.

We are unnerved in doom-tinged
dreams, for rhythms old as bird song
now are sliding out of tune. Our bodies
feel the slip and crack in timing
out of time: of shirt-sleeved Christmas,
iceless March, parched grass in June.
When rustling leaves and runnelled
rain should slip us down to dark by days,
from sweater, down to winter coat.
Relieved of snowy trials, if truth
be told, we feel uneasy in our ease.
And in the dark, where fear demands
its say, our feathered souls drip
oil-soaked dread of what's to surely come.
A sweat-drenched future whimpers
crouching there behind the
air-conditioned whine in conference
rooms where green-grey waves
of talking heads pretend
to save us from ourselves.
And we, relieved, uneasy and ashamed, sit
pecking out our eyes that will not see.