it’s cold tonight

like it should have been

in winter but it’s May now

and the days are wetter

than they were in December

close to Christmas

I walked in shorts

and looked up at bare peaks

places where I thought

there would always be snow

no longer had snow

they still don’t even now

apparently there is a word for this

recently coined to describe

a new sort of sadness, solastalgia

the feeling of watching

as your landscape is changed

by forces so far from your control

perhaps now this is

my defining feeling

for each morning

I look up at the melted mountains

and it hurts

I look at what we have done

to the world

the words are not yet invented

to fully describe it

though most of mine

try to speak to it still

Alexander Shalom Joseph is an award-winning poet, writer and playwright from Gilpin County, and is the author of seven published books. You can find his work and more information about him at alexandershalomjoseph.com.