We are living in deadly heat
We are living in a climate inferno
Growing in intensity season by season
We are living in fire
We are living in weather conditions
Created by avarice and greed
Created by the princes of petroleum
The captains of capital
We are witnessing temperatures soar
We are witnessing our fellow humans
Particularly the most vulnerable
Expire of the extreme heat –
People living on the streets
With nowhere to escape the sun
Elders with weakened immune systems
Infants whose little bodies cannot cope
The weather today:
110 degrees in Phoenix, 107 in Grand Junction
105 in Tulsa, 101 in Casper,
No relief in sight
When I was a young boy
We lived near a greenhouse
Where the neighborhood kids sometimes gathered
On sub-zero winter days
The embracing warmth
The rich, organic stink of humus
And manure and decomposing straw,
The summer-in-winter just next door
We knew why the heat couldn’t escape
Up through those hundreds of glass panes
We learned it in sixth-grade science:
The greenhouse effect
An exquisitely balanced system
That lets just the right amount of heat out
That keeps just the right amount of heat in
That makes life on earth possible
Now carbon emissions have thickened the glass
To trap more heat
To skew the ancient equilibrium
To weaponize the weather
We have protested outside office buildings
We have blockaded refinery entrances
We have ranted and chanted and invoked the future
To change the hearts and minds of the oiligarchs
To remind them of sixth-grade science
To remind them of the delicate balance
To demand that they cease and desist
But they won’t stop, won’t stop, won’t… stop…
Buff Whitman-Bradley’s latest book is And What Will We Sing? (Kelsay Books). He podcasts at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives with his wife Cynthia in northern California.