'Shifting Drama' & 'Black Creek': Two Poems by Antoni Ooto

SHIFTING DRAMA
Is this is the end of the long ice age? In the furthest
parts of the world, Antarctica
melts faster and faster while the atmosphere churns.
The cracking in the freeze thaw goes on…
a moment in the night.
The sound resonating in groans and cracks.
At last, glaciers recede into a new past.
Animals search their homes,
crawl over unfamiliar rock…
no longer dazzling
no longer safe
where future fossils record themselves
in disappearing chapters.
BLACK CREEK
moving along like blood restless over a dam
innocent cargo of seasons where perch beds water
persistent, enduring, a drift of stubborn trails
washing through a rhythm of trees
I embrace tempers of change and long shadows as
my canoe, quick in the stirring, heads east.
Antoni Ooto is a poet and flash fiction writer. His works have been published in Burning House Press, Ginger Collect, Soft Cartel, Amethyst Review, Bangor Lit Journal, Nixes Mate Review, Pilcrow & Dagger, Red Eft Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Young Ravens Literary Review, Front Porch Review, An Upstate of Mind and Palettes & Quills. Antoni lives and works in upstate New York with his wife, writer/storyteller Judy DeCroce.