an abecedarian
by Malinda Miller
The record-breaking heatwave scorching the US west [in March] would have been “virtually impossible” if not for the climate crisis... caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. —The Guardian, March 20, 2026
Above the steep riverbank, no snow or ice in sight,
below a craggy granite face, I’m
cracked open by
determination to understand
evolution. Not
from where, how, why —
grand theories
honed in academic halls, no — more
incipient answers to questions I’m afraid to ask.
Junipers surround me, trunks gnarled, twisted,
knobby—able to survive relentless heat, intense winds, scarcity of water.
Lichen, among the oldest of living things on Earth,
mossy green, burnt orange and yellow on barren rock
near my dusty backpack and boots, colonized here long before us.
Other foliage and organisms are not so hardy—nor am I—left
parched from a winter of too much wind and too little moisture;
questioning, can damage causing climate change be
reversed? What’s next? Can we adapt?
Should we expect a
tumultuous future full of
unforeseen consequences?
Verdant seasons may become rare. This we must accept.
We’re not as resilient as juniper or lichen. With limited water, only
xeric organisms will survive. Of this planet’s 4.5 billion years, in
yardsticks of time, humans are a blip. If, when, will we become
zero, zip, zilch?
Malinda Miller is a writer, teacher and editor who is most at home on Weston Pass in Colorado or in the Nevada desert where her family had a ranch just off Highway 50, aka the Loneliest Highway in America. Her poetry and personal essays have appeared in A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park, Ecotone, Think, the Mountain Gazette, the Colorado Sun, the Coloradan, and others. At Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, she teaches youth classes and community outreach workshops. She has a MFA in creative writing from Western State Colorado University and a MA in journalism from CU Boulder.
