Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome back poet David Holper of California with two powerful poems concerning environmental awareness. “After We Broke the Sky” is a confessional poem on a collective, global scale, exploring humanity’s failure to act when faced with climate science that shows a planet in peril. David looks back at us from the not-too-distant future, owning our hubris and unraveling the pattern of our downfall.
“Unsatisfied, we broke the sky/ beyond measure, wrapping our pretty lies in bright paper,/ pretending the shattered sky might be unwrapped later/ by someone smarter. Only the earth kept whispering,/ reminding us of the unmysterious truth, the myriad ways/ everything would die.”
Humanity enjoys magical thinking—inventing a world where the dots remain unconnected and we remain innocent. David dispels the illusion while creating alliterative music and resonant imagery that is compelling and beautiful. This lament retains a shred of hope that we can learn before it becomes reality.
The second poem, “This Sacred Task” was one of our poetry finalists, and it answers the furtive hope of the previous poem by bearing witness to the awesome wonder of nature. An early morning hike down the Mattole River to the coast is rewarded with a resplendent rainbow.
“Words fails to describe// what slows my hurry, stops my breath, and I am stunned into silence./ Later I try to recount this moment to a circle of poets, dancers, healers, helpers,/ but it’s a wash: the photo I stopped to snap is like showing someone a handful of ashes/ to stand in for a house you once lived in that flamed into memory.”
If you’ve ever been immersed in nature, suddenly surprised by a majesty you had thought forgotten, you’ll recognize the sacredness of this moment, the way it feels both eternal and fleeting. There is an ache in that, and David captures a wisp of that feeling. In the last two stanzas, the poem opens up into a slower pace aided by repetition that feels hymnlike.
“This is your sacred task: to remember,/ to give it voice. How else will we save the earth,/ or let it save us? Only in loving tenderness/ for our witness. Only in asking// what it means to be alive here this day…”
Read David’s transcendent poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Patterns” issue, Vol. 7, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
David Holper has published one novel, The Church of the Very Last Chance (Deeper Magic Press), and four collections of poetry, Bord för En (Swedish for “Table for One”) (Broken Tribe Press), Language Lessons: A Linguistic Hejira (Deeper Magic Press),The Bridge (Sequoia Song Publications) and 64 Questions (March Street Press). His poems and stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. He lives in Eureka, California, where he served as the City of Eureka’s inaugural poet laureate from August 2019-August 2021. He loves that Eureka is far enough away from the madness of civilization, so he can still hear the Canada geese.