A barrage of mindless talking heads
prattles and preens through the news hour
in this, our last week of a snowless March
(the first since the 1800's)
with temperatures climbing 30 degrees above average,
and the number of Americans believing in global warming
declining dangerously.
May the local blow-dried anchorman, who pompously introduces
the chirpy weatherlady by saying,
"Well, is there another beautiful day in store?"
see his large suburban mansion consumed by grassfires
as the volunteer firemen can't save it
in this waterless season.
May the bubbly weatherlady, ecstatic over 70’s and no rain,
who thinks all food flows forth (plastic-wrapped) from Con-Agra,
see all her shade trees die because winters here
no longer kill alien elm beetles and ash borers.
May she have to remove their huge remains at high expense.
And may the oblivious, trivial sportscaster,
exulting on air over his March game of golf
contract aspergillosis, dust-borne from
the winds over early-bared fields.
A myriad of curses on them–
wrapped in soothing, impenetrable cocoons of self–
and on others who think the universe is ordered for their pleasure,
ignoring cycles, seasonal links, supporting webs.
May they, and all those who do not understand
or care that life awaits the long soft rains,
or that soil should spring, not crunch, beneath our feet,
be cursed with the consequences of what they request
as they swoon with desire for June days in March.
Molly Redmond lives in St. Paul, MN. She’s retired after years of careers blending environmental education, writing, and science. She frequently cites Aldo Leopold’s statement from The Round River: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” In March, she prefers snow to sunburn.
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