by Buff Whitman-Bradley
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These days we ask ourselves If the weather we are experiencing Is typical of the month and season But we can no longer remember What is normal And what is extraordinary. For example, Is it usual for an afternoon In late October To be a cloudless 90 degrees? Maybe not, Yet I seem to remember Sweltering on after-lunch yard duty In the days leading up to Halloween When I was a kindergarten teacher Back in the 1990’s. But in “Big Time” Thirty years is just a fraction of a nanosecond ago So what does that prove One way or another? . Besides, we know what’s up, We don’t need to ask. We are cooking the biome With carbon And there seems to be so little will In high places To turn down the heat That we could sauté the whole planet In a couple of generations. Plenty of people know this. Plenty of people are banding together To protest, to disrupt, To go mano a mano With the perpetrators. But it is a massive undertaking And who knows if plenty will be enough? The little dog and I are lying on the bed Not discussing any of this As we look out the window Watching yellow leaves Detach themselves from branches And drift slowly downward Through the honeyed autumnal light As they always do This time of year.
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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.
A gorgeous piece and profoundly true. Thank you for sharing!