Climate Change

—a long drought in Syria
depletes soil and farmers
(those lower classes) migrate
to cities as their fields fail.
Amid the oppression
repression
degradation—
discontent and hopelessness
burn across the region.

Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War
mobilize war machines—
climate change of another sort—
tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, bombs—
crushing the soil,
crushing the crust.

And the bombs bursting
in air, scattering dust.

What farmers remain are killed,
driven out by ISIS, Syrian Army, or Rebels,
driven out by inability to farm and raise food
and what they scratch from the soil
gets stolen by the armies—

driving the refugee crisis,
driving across the old fields,
driving further depletion,
destruction of top soil.

And a year ago,
winds picked up the dust,
created a widely destructive
work of art, a dust storm
to end all dust storms,
a world war of dust storm
from Syria to Cypress out in the sea.

The effects of climate change
multiplying, driving more refugees
into more widespread urban areas
amid the oppression
repression
degradation—
discontent and hopelessness
across the ever-widening region.

—Michael Dickel