Starving Month

A poem about the climate crisis.

Amid the fragrant buds of trees and flowers,

April was known as Starving Month,

when winter stores had been depleted

but the earliest crops could not be reaped,

not mature until May or June.

And this was in a time when harvests were regular,

before the age of methane and fertilizers.

In the Anthropocene it will be drastically different.

You must understand: not only curlews

and monarchs will end their lineages;

record droughts and record floods

and the death of all bees will ensure

widespread failure of staple crops, and prices will skyrocket.

This age of cream and honey will soon run dry,

and the abundance we've known will come to end.

In a decade or two's time,

every month will be a starving month.

Author's Note

Published by Sierra Nevada Review, September 2025 Issue
https://www.sierranevadareview.com/sean-eaton-2025