alternate title: “we’ve
never seen anything like it” may 2019 = wettest month (not wettest may, wettest month) on record in this area; but june precipitation: month to date: 0.99” norm m.t.d.: 2.30” (??) yesterday: hi: 81 / norm: 84 lo: 49 / norm: 62 (??) (o & may was u.s.’ hottest ever btw) but not quite 122f: that’s what it was in agra yesterday; four people died on the train to kerala; farther south, “village after village lies deserted . . . leaving sick & elderly to fend for themselves” – wells and handpumps dried up – 6k water tankers to maharashra daily; 8 million at risk; beed, a city of 240k, clean drinking water has run out – flushing “has become an un- affordable luxury” & “women wait for night to defecate in the open” – & 4700 farmer suicides past 5 years – we here may be seeing more of that soon – (even as upper kashmir valley sees unseasonable snowfall; lower valley rained 2 days straight) moreover: kuwait city 126f in shade; 145 in sun (but it’s dry heat); “. . . the man was found with his tools next to his body” & rome thinks they have it bad @ 99 or san francisco @ 100 (w/”meltdown” of subway); it’s only 86 in the finnish arctic . . . alberta wildfire big as rhode island . . . “no individual weather event can be attributed to climate change. however . . .” dry corridor of central america drier and hotter than ever; 55k people leave nicaragua; all of may’s rain fell in just 5 days, ruining the first harvest (“drought-to-deluge cycle,” another scientist calls it). “’conditions for agricultural production in the dry corridor don’t exist anymore," (victor campos, dir. humboldt center) “that's what this land might have in store for us: death” (subsistence farmer) meanwhile autstralia wheat harvest (world’s 4th largest producer) ↓ 11%; & global prices ↑ 15% since may in namibia, “all you see on farmers’ faces is desperation.” late rains didn’t come; now livestock too skinny to sell and feed unaffordable even as flooding in s. china: 16 dead last week; 2 million people “impacted” flooding in sulawesi (where’s sulawesi?), over 4k people evac’d; flooding in bavaria, hail hammering munich “like gunshots,” broken windshields; & in english midlands and n.e. flooded roads and rails & rain continues u.s. south, midwest; atlanta: most rain in single day; st. louis: river almost lapping base of the arch; corn planting at all-time low . . . beans not much better “we’ve entered ‘a new climate regime,’” says one report but i’ve been outside – it’s a beautiful day today . . . ------------------------------- * The short lines are the result of my trying to preserve line-breaks on the screens of mobile devices (an approach not unlike Jack Kerouac's stanza form in Mexico City Blues, which fit the size of his pocket notebook - why not?). But those screens are unforgiving, and it doesn't always work - unless I shrink the font, which makes it unreadable for those over 50. But it doesn't really matter, as this is not a real poem. In fact, none of this is real and isn't happening.
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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. |