"The only thing of value is the thing you cannot say." Wittgenstein

At King Salmon on that beautiful Sunday, my father-in-law praises

the day: the sun walks across the wavetops on Humboldt Bay, three pelicans wing north,

cumulonimbus puff themselves up, holding back the land. Looking out

across the water to where the jetties nearly touch, the waiting maw

of the Pacific, I want so much to say, Yes! Look on it well.

In a hundred years, these seas dead: too acid

to support life. And the shore? The melt from Greenland and Antarctica will drown

everything your eye touches. But how to say what cannot be said,

or cannot be said often enough: The earth is dying to us. We strangle her

with our numbers, our needs. But I choke back

the words. All I manage is the silence of witness

of this memory now given over. I place it

into the hands of the willing,

relying upon your witness.