AMOC Amok

The mighty engine of the northern seas,
Which drove the warming currents from the south
And blessed the Celtic hills with gentle breeze,
Now halts its stride inside the ocean’s mouth.

The great Atlantic conveyor stills its pace,
As frozen waters from the northern ice
Dilute the brine and alter nature's face,
A sudden shift that exacts a heavy price.

Where once the emerald fields of Britain grew,
The biting winds of sudden winter blow,
And frost locks down the earth the winter through,
Buried beneath a permanent shroud of snow.

While Europe freezes in a new-born chill,
The swollen tropics choke on stagnant heat,
The shifting monsoons skip the parched hill,
And dry the soil where crops were once replete.

The deep abyss, deprived of oxygen,
Becomes a tomb where ancient life must die;
The whales must seek a warmer path again,
Beneath an altered, unfamiliar sky.

The plankton drift, the food webs break and fall,
As ocean currents lose their rhythmic bound,
A quiet catastrophe that touches all,
From highest peak to trenches deep and drowned.

We stand as witnesses to this great pause,
The architects of our own shifting fate,
Now bound by nature's unyielding laws,
And learning wisdom when it is too late.

The great machine of climate shifts its gear,
A restless giant waking from its sleep,
As humanity confronts its deepest fear:
The bitter harvest that we chose to reap.