Depression Has This in Common with Climate Change

You can watch the water lap
at the coast of New York,
the tide coming in a little
higher month by month
and still buy your groceries,
pay your phone bill and even
when rain shrinks the shore
to a sliver, you can throw on
galoshes and muddle your way
through, which is to say that it all
goes on even as it doesn’t,
and you can ask whether it’s ethical
to have children in such a world,
whether it’s worth investing in
stocks, planting a garden,
and the answer will always be
the same: move the manikin arms
of your body, your sock-puppet
mouth, and find higher ground.