The Seventh Lagoon
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The Seventh Lagoon from THE LAGOON CYCLE. 1974-1984. Helen Mayer Harrison & Newton Harrison.
One morning we heard the ocean singing
Increase in heat decrease in ice
Increase in water decrease in land
Ice into water water to ice
Stated changes changes of state
---
Decrease in heat increase in ice
Decrease in water increase in land
---
Melt at the South Pole rise in LA
Ice into water not water to ice
so
Increase in heat decrease in ice
Increase in water decrease in land
After all the ocean whispered
I am the beneficiary of your garbage can
as you are the beneficiary of my abundance
and everybody knows that ice into water
and water to ice are changes of state
---
Upon hearing this
we took a present world map and
drew a probable world
---
It is said that if all the ice melted
the oceans would rise about 300 feet
So we drew line as best we could
at the 300-foot level
and thought about how the land would shrink
as the oceans grew
---
And the waters will rise slowly
at the boundary
at the edge
---
redrawing that boundary
continually
moment by moment
all over
altogether
all at once
It is a graceful drawing and redrawing
this response to the millennia of the making of fire
---
As the waters rise slowly in the Red Sea
and the Dead Sea the Caspian
the North the Baltic and the Black
the ocean gyres will redraw themselves
vas will the currents and the tides
---
And over time gracefully
this rising tide will flow up every river
that once flowed down to the sea
and each freshwater tongue will withdraw
before the advance of the salt
Up the Saint Lawrence the Columbia
the Amazon the Hudson the Mississippi
the White Nile and the Blue
the Volga the Don the Danube
and the Thames
the Seine and the Loire
the Rhone and the Rhine and
the Garonne
the Ganges the Congo
the Tigris and the Euphrates
the Yellow the Amur the Irrawaddy
the Lena the Potomac and the Snake
and all rivers named and unnamed
---
And the flood plains that are farmed upon
and lived upon
will become marshes or swamps or bogs
or beds for swollen rivers
or shallow inland seas
and the tropics will become uninhabitable
and the far north will become temperate
and corn and rice and wheat and beans
and plantain manioc and yams
and all the grains and starchy roots
known and unknown
named and unnamed
will have to grow elsewhere than now
and most life
known and unknown
will have to go elsewhere than now
as vast parts of the eastern seaboard
of the United States,
and parts of Europe near the North Sea
and much of South America near the Amazon
and China somewhere
and Russia in some parts India
and other bits of Asia
Africa Polynesia
Melanesia Australia
and Japan
will joint in the growing sea
---
And in this new beginning
this continuous rebeginning
will you feed me when my lands
can no longer produce
and will I house you
when your lands are covered with water?
so that together
we will withdraw
as the waters rise?
Text from The 7th Lagoon 1978
