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