Time Travels

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem. We depend on the power of this river. We depend on it this day in 2023. We depend on it for our electricity, for flood control, for irrigation. It is a drainage system the size of France. At this point on the Vernita Bridge we are at the Hanford Reach— fifty-one miles of the only part of the amazing 1,243 mile long Columbia River that is free-flowing. And it’s been flowing for millions of years, ever since the micro-continent slammed into the North American continent which broke away from Europe and Africa millions and millions and millions of years ago.

It’s fed by the glaciers of the Rockies, mostly, where it starts in Canada, and the glaciers are melting. They are melting. The weather patterns are changing. The western part of the United States is in drought and the cause we know is global warming, climate change.

So as the earth warms more and more, and the drought expands, and glaciers melt, we have no river. We might look like Mars does now. We might have rivers of wind.

And so, a poem about the time travels we might take if we all don’t learn about and help stop global warming:

• Climate Change [United Nations]
• How to Stop Global Warming [NDRC] [NOAA] [AMNH- for kids]
• Climate Kids [NASA] Home Page, Guide, How to Help
• NASA: What to Do, Sustainability and Government Resources

Poetry

Time Travels

Flowing onward
for millions of years
this river holds histories
of volcanoes, glaciers,
floods, drought, peoples;
Each ripple tugs
at stories along the shore,
ripples born of glaciers
in the Canadian Rockies
now melting
so the ripples
flowing onward
may be
nevermore,
may be
just wind
flowing onward
for millions of years.

Sheri Edwards
08.23.23 235.365.23
Poetry/Photography [See-Frame-Focus]

#clmooc #smallpoems #poetry23 #vernitabridge #columbiariver #hanfordreach