“what’s happening at the south
pole is really terrifying,” the anchor sez; “it really is,” the co-anchor agrees. “now, in headline news . . .” they’d just shown time-lapse nasa footage of the pine island glacier “calving” (awww – that sounds so cute, but isn’t) sending ice the size of manhattan, naples, 1/3 of paris (+ a few small nations thrown in for good measure) out into the sea to melt away -- shifts in the arctic oscillation -- (news that’s gonna stay news . . .) yesterday, we were right on the money for normal hi unlike anchorage, which hit a record hi tues (44 f) at midnight, but had record snow (8.9”) 24 hrs later . . . & hibernating animals at zoos in n. europe are waking up . . . “according to global averages, january was the hottest month in recorded history” [. . . pause . . .] & in “a village near to lyme regis” (u.k.), an alleged tornado — power lines, trees down -- “my neighbour’s boat weighed 300 to 400 lbs & moved about 14 ft across his garden, swivelled around a number of times & the keel made indentations in his lawns where the wind picked it up and moved it” -- which sounds like a twister to me (guardian: “flooded britain: a new normal?”) record hi’s in florida (“like summer”); last yr hottest ever on is. of oahu; “sprawling fields turned into large lakes throughout west tennessee,” including halls tn., near my dad’s hometown — brings it closer to home somehow — even though i don’t live in the flooded trailer park (always the poor folk live in lowlands); & in n.s.w., first fires, now floods (17” of rain last week) & inevitable mudslides: "i just saw this massive piece of earth coming at me, it was absolutely horrific … the feeling that you're going to be buried alive” . . . but 99% of the state still in drought: they’re trucking in water out in the bush, where “the river hasn’t run since 2017,” where “the farmer shot all the cattle, then shot himself” & the locusts arrived in s. sudan, forming swarms the size of cities (has any of this been on the news where you are?)
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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. |