“to lose one’s land
has nothing to do with storms”

                         —Joan Naviyuk Kane

It always starts
with a single decision—

to dig ingress trenches
from coast to oil rig, to

build levees along
the river’s banks

so silt spills out to gulf,
to clear cut all the cypress

around the lake so tides
wash away solid ground,

even the decision to
do nothing for 50 years

while salt water eased 
its way into the roots

of marsh grass loosening
the whole shape of our

coast. That’s how land is
lost, entire homesteads,

entire hunting grounds,
entire graveyards full of

collective memories, lost
as slowly as language dies.