16 Elul: HEAT

HEAT
(a prose tanka)

We modern humans, we Homo sapiens, evolved from our primitive ancestors during the Ice Age.  With our increasing brain power we created clothing, built shelters, and learned to control fire, all to stay warm in a cold climate. Our bodies evolved to larger stockier shapes that minimize heat loss. Metabolic changes that conserve heat developed. Despite our archaic origins in the warm climates of Africa, we are better adapted to extreme cold. We are not adapted to extreme heat. 

                                                         Heat is upon us

                                                         lungs reject the hot moist air

                                                         legs can barely move

                                                         we are exiled from Eden

                                                         and there will be no return

Hear this shofar call

heat storms floods overwhelm us

despair will not help 

we know what needs to be done

now we must turn to the task

Lois Rosenthal is retired from a career in academia (Chemistry) in California. She also taught Hebrew School and tutored B’nai Mitzvah for a decade. She is a member of Temple Beth Israel in Waltham. Lois is also a member of the MA State Poetry Society / local CREW Poets branch and lives in Winthrop, where temperatures have been running 5o above Boston’s, and legendary sea breezes are nowhere to be found.