When 2010 Brought Menopause

     “Great Grief”—a feeling that rises in us as if from the Earth itself…
      that our individual grief and emotional loss can actually be
      a reaction to the decline of our air, water, and ecology
         – Dr. Per Espen Stoknes

For many months, I didn’t notice
I’d stopped bleeding

When I realized
no more moons would
be stained by my blood
I grinned at the sky

My blood disappeared
sometime in the year
scientists describe as
when “Earth struck back”—

earthquakes, heat waves,
floods, volcanoes, blizzards,
super typhoons, and droughts
killed over 250 million humans
to make 2010 the deadliest
year in more than a generation

Climatologists calculated
Russia’s heat wave that set
a national record of 111 degrees
would have occurred once
every 100,000 years
without global warming

A freeze in Florida turned
cold-blooded iguanas comatose,
making them litter sidewalks
when they fell off trees

A volcano in Iceland paralyzed
air traffic for days in Europe

An earthquake in Haiti
killed over 220,000 people
while Super Typhoon Juan
killed 31 people and that year’s
economy in the Philippines

A rare tornado whipped
New York City’s steel skyscrapers

When I realized no more blood
would etch my thighs as they
leaked their conflicted writings
I grinned at the blue sapphire
that formed sky’s sunlit ceiling—

I welcomed my new infertility

.

Eileen R. Tabios

.