Krasnoyarsk, Siberia . . . somebody burns
down the arizona demo party hq.; secret police shoot or kidnap protesters; armed militias face off in american streets; postmaster genl. promises to delay the mails as voters mail their ballots; somebody burns down arizona, for that matter . . . “i confess i put no trust in the spirit of freedom . . . i see well enough that the nations of this age are turbulent, but i do not clearly perceive that they are liberal; & i fear lest, at the close of those per- turbations which rock the base of thrones, the dominion of sovereigns may prove more powerful than it ever was before.” i.e., 100 days from now, the political struggle for the climate may have been decided. that’s enough to make craven me willing to put my body on the line, or even more unpleasant action, like phone-banking . . . (ugh.) meanwhile: which were the places battered by heavy rains & inundations this weekend? tell me, o muse, in whatever order you like! basements & cars underwater in zagreb, croatian capital; taif, saudi arabia, transformed into a shallow lake; & don’t forget yemen, across which wadi-washers washed away houses & some people, too; 132 dead in nepal — chest-hi water & landslides withal; on the upper yangtze, more rain to swell the cresting waves downstream; more deadly downpours in kyushu; likewise busan, korea, triggering mudslides, “turning subway stations into indoor showers”; monsoons still covering bangladesh (1st it was super- cyclone amphan; then the lock- down & 40% of rural income e- vaporated — no remittances from the cities; now just this rain after rain after rain), 1/3 of country sinks under water, 1/3 of the country sinks under the poverty line “men who inhabit democratic countries . . . can never, w/o an effort, tear themselves from their private affairs to engage in public business; their natural bias leads them to abandon the latter to the sole visible & permanent representative of the interests of the community; that is to say, the state” say, o muse, who is burning now? pantanal, world’s biggest tropical wetland, 2x as many fires as 2019; 100 f (+) all around the mediterranean (“tinderbox” a preferred metaphor) -- fires out of control in peloponese; 51.6 m acres burned in “mega- fires” across siberia . . . “an innumerable multitude of men, all equal & alike, in- cessantly endeavoring to procure the petty & paltry pleasures w/which they glut their lives. . . . as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them but does not see them; he touches them, but does not feel them . . . and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.” & it may be 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. |