Before the Water Gets Too High

Seldom have I ever questioned the end

Still I grow frost when I'm reminded

Euphemisms on a loop interchange

Which hands get to turn the final page?

In whose throat belongs the swan song

Of crisis, warming, denial, change?

State TV helps the public explain

Broadcast beamed into the dry terrain

Images of drenched survival

Without hope but soaked with pain

Consequences of reality felt

All conditions of humanity built

On the bridges

Tent villages waiting for the state to help

Glass barely bends before it cracks

Embedded down into our path

Paved in the crimson of our tracks

Without the chance of turning back

Before the water gets too high

Before the water gets too high

If the clock strikes midnight then

What becomes of our demonstrations?

To which fate have these gatherings fell?

Which walls echo all the chants we yelled

Into faces on the coins we tossed into the wishing well?

Drinking water on which we subsist

Mixing into rivers that did not exist yesterday

When all the warning signs were there but sorely missed

What's it worth all the money we made

Floating idly in a newborn lake?

Far above financial centers

Cities sink like market rates

Glass barely bends before it cracks

Embedded down into our path

Paved in the crimson of our tracks

Without the chance of turning back

Before the water gets too high

Add up the bribes you take

And know time can't be bought

By the profits that you make

Before the water gets too high

To float the powers that be

Or is it someone else's job

Until the rich are refugees?

Before the water gets too high