Laura Hinton, “Wetlands Under Storm,” photos

 Joseph Harrington

from

The Poem of Our Climate

so i think maybe i gotta process

my eco-grief, eco-anxiety,

eco-dread, eco-despair,

eco-numbness & maybe

eco-lalia. & eco-haustion, for sure—

lots of that. i need to counter-

act the eco-doomscrolling & eco-

ppreciate the birds that show up.

& get good at pretending

i’m already dead so

nothing can hurt me anymore.

first-of-season oriole

first-of-season warbling vireo

f.o.s. prothonotary warbler

f.o.s. great-crested flycatcher

bluebird morning light &

savannah sparrow w/pale yellow

supercilium visible.

writers, like other humans

try to know

is there anybody out there?

*

redbuds leafing out:

i want to yell “wait!”

most everything leafed out,

really, after summery temps

for a week or more:

spring sprang in a jiffy

but now? freeze warning tonite.

there goes the apple crop.

not so many birds at the feeder,

not so many species

& our deepest desire

remains to avoid disruption

a flicker drums on somebody’s

vent hood &

i resent the noise deeply:

too busy to get outside:

got to do our jobs, got to

keep from falling

“joe, are you on track

for your retirement goals?”

meanwhile, “monster

asian heat wave”—

schools shuttered in e. india;

record energy use in bangladesh

how many acres are burning?

is anybody keeping track?

signs

taken for wonders or vice versa:

in ft. lauderdale last week

2 feet of rain fell in hours:

now the cleanup, & jenny sims says

“you know, we’re real people &

we don’t have a house. we feel

like nobody cares.”

*

meanwhile, in c. kenya,

george karanja says, “when

there is no water in the house,

i don’t think you can stay in that house—

especially with a wife and kids—

the house is uninhabitable w/o water!”

(same cd be sd for the world)

“every week we only get water twice,”

josephine nuduta reports,

“on tuesdays and fridays”

the climate scientists are freaked, so

don’t listen to the climate scientists

& you won’t be

but i can’t ignore potholes

that dern freeze-thaw cycle

(wch we’ve cycled through a lot this winter)

makes ‘em. (all the stuff

you don’t think of…)

*

1m s. korean people face water crisis:

“i also save water in the sink. we do

the laundry when there’s tap water

two times a week. we are just waiting

for rain to drop.” water also running out

around phnom penh: “we were forced

to buy water from a water truck for $10

for five tanks, but for those who do not

have the money, it is difficult for them”

& 80% of kansas wheat crop in

lousy shape—importing wheat

from europe now

(the most important story

in world history can’t go

without an epic chronicle,

even a lousy one—&

nobody’s writing it but

*

“in feb. 2021, winter storm uri created

energy shortages across the central u.s.

as a result, evergy kansas

experienced extraordinary costs related

to generating, purchasing, and delivering

power to its customers during the storm.

“the kansas corporation commission

[so aptly named!]

has approved an agreement

allowing evergy to recover those costs,

outlined in docket no. 21-ekme-329-gie.

“evergy works closely with state regulators

[how true] to keep energy costs

as low as possible, even in extraordinary

circumstances like storm uri. in fact,

customers of electric utilities in other urieffected

[sic] states will likely have larger percustomer

recovery costs than evergy’s.”

[lucky!]

*

niagara falls boat tours start earlier than ever

where do you wanna go today, 1st worlder?!

allergy season starting earlier every year

plan that next marathon today!

hundreds of humans killed by cyclone freddy,

longest-lived cyclone ever

consider e.t.f.s or index funds

to ensure retirement leisure today!

longest-ever rainless stretch in france;

driest winter; 11 depts. limit water

study abroad! build yr resume!

beat out the competition! think

of your future! everyone’s

the competition! today!

highest-ever temp in n. hemisphere

for first half of march (115 f, senegal)

they say you can retire in mexico

for a fraction of what it costs here today!

“my best friend, her brother, sister, and mother

went with the mudslide”

if interest rates went down

we’d buy today!

“their bodies have never been found.

it’s devastating.”

plains groundwater level biggest drop since 2012

the new willow field will ensure

our nation’s energy independence

for decades to come, today!

11th “atmospheric river” for soggy California

“greek salad will be the least

of our worries"

*

you’ll

numb them to the truth

if you tell them the truth

w. texas chokes in dust storms:

“lubbock & nearby towns look like

they were plucked out

of star wars”

hottest feb. on record in india:

“wheat farmers in northern states

in a panic state…”

(& why even mention

chinese provinces or proverbs?)

“much of the northern

hemisphere is struggling w/ drought,

as europe experiences an unusually

warm, precipitation-free winter”

& the blind poet-chronicler,

who can’t tell nobody’s listening,

continues the tale, even tho

his hydropower’s low, he’s

dehydrated, he’s

running out of steam

& no new normal

to shake a stick at…

* 

our mayor, who is an

environmental “consultant”:

“the city has dedicated

quite a bit of funding to

infrastructure for expansion”—

meaning we’re all on board for

GROWTH!—

meaning

we can keep on doing

what we’re doing

indefinitely

but renewable expansion b/c

the universe is expanding, right?

“it’s not every day you see the subtropical

jet stream dip almost

down to the equator!”

true, esp. if you never

look

*

“mass exodus

of entire populations on a

biblical scale”

in the u.s., 1 m people dis-

place for 30+ days

due to extreme weather

(3x as many poor people as

rich; 1/2 never return home)

"it's very emotional to watch

your house taken down.”

"flood insurance just went

through the roof.”

mexican cartels deal in

not just drugs but water—

which is too expensive for the poor,

who in turn turn to gangs

or create social disruption

b/c of lack of water

kenya declares

national day of prayer—for rain;

in pakistan, 1000s

of new cases of water-

borne diseases every week,

result of floods last year

“our energy policies are killing

people today, and they are going

to keep killing people. yet

i’m the one sat in prison

for trying to protect life.”

“when the good lord changes

the weather pattern & it starts to rain,

& i believe it will in s.w. kansas…”

in healy, the weather service volunteer

(also a crop insurance agent)

writes on a whiteboard in the local bank

the moisture totals—wch rank

as the lowest on record

(“empty grain bins to

stressed psyches to

strained economies”)

much of w. kansas qualifies

as desert now: < 10” rain for the year

many people all around the world

succumb to heat deaths—but

not all in one place at one time--

just a few here a few there

undramatically.

& birds.

someone else will have

to write the ending