Copyright © Erik B. White
4 Sep 07
News of the apocalypse in the headlines Reads the Bay Area Underwater By 2100, But this is a real-estate minded estimate Conservative at best, the damage is done As carbon dioxide continues to accumulate And warm the planet at an alarming rate, Causing climate change and mass extinction Creating new coastlines drowning many cities, San Francisco and Seattle relegated to relics, Deep beneath crashing waves is Golden Gate Park, And just offshore the Bridge’s twin towers peak— The space needle sits a precarious flying saucer Buoyed there like a beacon of the past Now but a marker for ships to pass, Over the wreckage of the Palace of Fine Arts, The Legion of Honor still stands high atop the hill Where the thinker sits thinking, How resilient humans are to save Culture and art with strategic placement, So these lofty ideas would not burn In the cataclysm which took buildings Of lesser brick, not marble and grantite Modeled on Greek civilization Kept safe behind pillars from heaven— Entrusted with rebuilding the Earth We are the builders of the future, Come together at the mountaintops Which now peaked by lighthouses Are communicating beacons between the high spots— A lofty audience always aware and ready To alert the people to move to high ground, And take defensive positions on the walls Of the tidal barricades, repelling Turbulent warm waters always rising.