The day long cold drizzle and drenching downpours
Keeping us indoors cooking soup staying warm and dry
Looking out at the raindrops on the wind blown surface
As the water rises in the man-made lake behind us.
Here in Florida we are just inches above sea level
Where construction requires making mounds digging holes
To perch buildings just barely above the surrounding swamp
Creating a patchwork of berms heaped up around borrow pits.
That stormwater collection basin is filling fast today
Receiving all the runoff from the rooftops and road
Where we are in one of 190 townhouses clustered
In 35 buildings set around that excavation site.
Looking across to the backside of identical buildings
And to the left and right enclosing as if protecting
A space engineered to make this place habitable
Where everyone knows the layout of every unit unseen.
There's a kind of community here where people wave hello
A camaraderie in sharing similar circumstances
Where we enjoy our evening circular stroll around the complex
Past our neighbors greeting us making us feel welcome.
And yet the rising water will change all this
As the warming sea expands and floods inland here
Forcing evacuation leaving behind a way of life
And empty structures as a reminder of precarious existence.
Now the rain is pounding on the roof
Sounding an urgency that quickens my pulse
As I know is felt as well by millions upon millions
All around the world eager to act against global warming.
Climate change is the ultimate byproduct of capitalism
What benefits the few at the expense of the rest of us
Climate change is the ultimate byproduct of capitalism
When pollution is profitable and the polluters rule the day
Business as usual means the costs get socialized
And a green new deal appeals to fortune seekers.
What benefits the few at the expense of the rest of us
Harming all life on this planet is irrational
Denying science in order to extract every last dollar
We must rise up and put them out of business.
