"Letter to Noah’s Wife" by Maya C. Popa

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day Sept. 30, 2019   Letter to Noah's Wife   Maya C. Popa

You are never mentioned on Ararat or elsewhere, but I know a woman's hand in salvation when I see it. Lately, I'm torn between despair and ignorance. I'm not a vegetarian, shop plastic, use an air conditioner. Is this what happens before it all goes fluvial? Do the selfish grow self-conscious by the withering begonias? Lately, I worry every black dress will have to be worn to a funeral. New York a bouillon, eroded filigree. Anything but illness, I beg the plagues, but shiny crows or nuclear rain. Not a drop in London May through June. I bask in the wilt by golden hour light. Lately, only lately, it is late. Tucking our families into the safeties of the past. My children, will they exist by the time it's irreversible? Will they live astonished at the thought of ice not pulled from the mouth of a machine? Which parent will be the one to break the myth; the Arctic wasn't Sisyphus's snowy hill. Noah's wife, I am wringing my hands not knowing how to know and move forward. Was it you who gathered flowers once the earth had dried? How did you explain the light to all the animals?            Copyright © 2019 by Maya C. Popa. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 30, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "I have been trying to work on poems about the environment that draw from and create tension with inherited narratives. I grew fascinated by Noah's wife, a woman unnamed in the Bible, and her role during the flood. I chose to write to her as a way to think about my own role and potential inaction in the current crisis." —Maya C. Popa   Maya C. Popa is the author of American Faith, forthcoming from Sarabande Books in November 2019. She is the Poetry Reviews Editor at Publishers Weekly, and an English teacher and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City, where she lives. Poetry by Popa   American Faith (Sarabande Books, 2019) from "Apocalipsixtlán" [5. Signs of the End of the World] by Rigoberto González "Ice Would Suffice" by Risa Denenberg "The Conditional" by Ada Limón September Guest Editor: Eduardo C. Corral   Thanks to Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2020, who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Corral about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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