No longer “by” the Sea
In 1912, Jacob Wesley Wilbur
who had made a fortune selling land
bought hundreds of acres
for himself and some others
along the Atlantic Ocean
in sunny Florida.
Wilbur died five years later,
but the land continues on,
bearing his name and a reminder
for anyone who needed one
that his development was indeed
located by-the-sea.
So for a century and more,
people bought property
in Wilbur-by-the-sea,
and enjoyed many happy days
of surf and ocean breezes.
But the world of the 21st century
isn’t the same as it was in the 20th.
Our world is now warming,
the glaciers are melting away,
and what used to be ice at the poles
has become water in the sea.
Or to put it another way:
There’s much more sea
than there used to be
and it’s taking back
Wilbur’s legacy.
