Storm Overtaking

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By Rachael Ikins

Sun on our backs we trudge

into darkness,

lean into the wind’s teeth.

Schizophrenic views-south Sun and

blue. North blue into black.

What do you expect?

Earth’s magnetic truth packed its pole

moving from Canada for Russia.

Beneath Antarctic Earth brews

molten massacre,

that will rot ice, topple glaciers and flush

cities from the crumbled boundaries

where continents argue with the ceaseless sea.

Nobody ever stops to think that

Earth is one whole organism

in the velvet Being that is Universe.

Earth has Her own agendas, Her own timeline,

immune responses when Her skin itches with such intensity

Her temperatures rocket beyond fever, plummet subzero, cutting cold.

Earth is the huffing puffing wolf,

I, the 3 little pigs. I wish for a house of brick,

but everything feels like sticks

in this wind. I used to love wind.

Now I am afraid.

Nobody stops to think

of the consequences.

Or owns it.

Look at what

we have done

Rachael Ikins is a 2016/18 Pushcart nominee, 2013/18 CNY Book Award nominee, and the
2018 Independent Book Award winner poet/novelist/artist. She featured at Tyler Gallery 2016,
Rivers End Bookstore 2017, ArtRage gallery 2018, Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, Aaduna
fundraiser 2017 Auburn, NY, Syracuse Poster Project 2015, and Palace Poetry, Syracuse. Her
work is included in the 2019 anthologies Gone Dogs and We Will Not Be Silenced the latter
Book Authority’s #2 pick for the top 100 Best New Poetry Books for 2019. She has 7
chapbooks, a full length poetry collection and a novel, with 3 publishers. She is a graduate of
Syracuse University, member of the CNY branch of NLAPW, and Associate Editor of Clare
Somgbirds Publishing House, Auburn, NY.