the problems of two people
don’t amount to a hill of beans – or flood debris – in this crazy mixed-up world – i have to keep reminding myself of this, have to keep reminding myself to do what needs doing today, around the house or at the job, as well as prepare for what today will be like tomorrow & after years of tomorrows, like learning how to pickle acorns & getting good enough at spanish that i can interpret for displaced persons . . . hi yesterday 53f, 10˚ ↑ norm; as for today’s today, 35f right now – forecast 27 by 6 pm: typical kansas weather, only moreso . . . meanwhile, after the u.s.’ wettest spring ever, australia’s driest spring ever, springs drying up, rivers empty, > a dozen towns in n.s.w. water- less: we’re a “tinderbox waiting to go up,” she sez, as she waits on her porch for the water truck – landscape of cracked brown earth w/a few green oasis where farmers have the money to irrigate; brisbane has hottest dec day ever; video of “firenado” rolling across queensland, as 100 bushfires burn; while in victoria, three escape control & grow & grow, as heat heads towards 110f, as – (fun fact, first-world folks: california now spends $5b/yr on firefighter salaries) + 16 humans buried under landslides in uganda; beira, mozambique is underwater, & just when you think things are hopeless, e. africa finally gets another cyclone; at the same time, “21,000 cattle lost to drought” in zimbabwe; in one part of s. africa, dead fish on a dried-up lake; while n. cape had drought, now deluge; & victoria falls a trickle of its former self; mean- while in sri lanka, 10k people flee rising waters in island’s e. & n.; 4k in w. java likewise evac’d; 66k in phillipines, villages cut off by landslides; & i won’t mention the 56 polar bears that showed up at a russian village, b/c on this poem, we do not talk about polar bears . . . but in chile’s atacama desert, all is a-bloom, after 4 mo. of freak rainfall – mighty purty – b/c, as the neoliberal pundits are so fond of saying: “there will be winners & there will be losers” – meaning they will be the winners, b/c they set the whole thing up, this crazy mixed- up world
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |