Mira Jacobs wrote an op-ed comic strip called
Things I thought made sense just don’t anymore,
and I raised it standing in a circle of moms
in a kitchen on new years,
pulling all small talking threads
to some strain
of apocalypse.
No one had read it, so I asked,
this feeling we have,
slipping out from under–
is that specific to us?
To now?
One mom, an artist who works with cut paper photographs
of water and architectural ruin, said no.
My grandmother lived through two world wars, she said.
Maybe she thought I was asking:
Is it always hard to be in a body on the earth for a short time?
Harder now?
Does every generation claim unprecedented?
Yes, and.
At nine, my son wrote his first five paragraph essay:
The world is dying.
