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| “But perhaps what’s most scary about this scorching summer is how little concerned Americans seem to be. So far, climate change has barely registered as an issue in the midterm elections, and, where it has, the optics couldn’t be worse: 'Trump Digs Coal' was a slogan that appeared on placards at a West Virginia rally with the President, staged on the day that the new power-plant rules were published. As a country, we remain committed to denial and delay, even as the world, in an ever more literal sense, goes up in flames.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, September 10, 2018 issue |
There was a time when summer wasn't hell.
The way to know is simply to remember
before our avarice had grown so well,
before the weather changed, when snowflakes fell
just as they should and did in deep December.
There was a time when summer wasn't hell.
Recall the April rain when you could tell
that day was spring. Recall a cool September
before our avarice had grown so well,
before self-serving progress spread pell-mell,
exchanging peace for strife for all Earth's members.
There was a time when summer wasn't hell.
The season did not pass as sentinel
on watch for flames and smoke and end in embers
before our avarice had grown so well.
For wealth and ease appeal to us, but sell
out Earth, which sends us August in November.
There was a time when summer wasn't hell
before our avarice had grown so well.
David Rosier lives in a small town in the American West, which has suffered through the worst drought and worst fire season on record. This poem hopes to put blame where it belongs.
