Twelve minutes and 13 seconds. That’s how long it takes to walk from the pre-drought shoreline of Utah’s Great Salt Lake to where the water is now. To get there, I trek across a plain of brittle, salty pancakes that clink together like wind chimes as you step; through a maze of hundreds of bird carcasses that appear to be almost melting into the sand; and, eventually, to the edge of the water.

On a recent summer morning, this stroll feels more like a funeral procession. Perhaps that’s because, in February 2022, when I was living in Utah, I attended an actual wake for the Great Salt Lake in this very spot, at a moment when it was near a record low. A number of poets read their work to the lake that day, facing the water and not the crowd. One poem, titled “ 1,237 Steps ,” by Chloe Skidmo

See Full Page