Pika: Related to rabbits, the American pika thrives in snow and will die within six hours if temperatures reach 77.9 degrees Fahrenheit (25.5 degrees Celsius). As a result, scientists view pikas as an indicator specifies for climate change. As the climate warms, pikas are becoming extinct at lower elevations of alpine mountain ranges throughout the western United States. At the same time, the remaining pikas range higher up these mountains in an attempt to escape a warming planet. My poem imagines the day when a pika reaches a mountaintop and finds rain instead of snow and nowhere else to go.

Photo Glenn Nelson.

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