The bloody smear is fire.  [Guardian graphic. Sources: Smoke data from Noaa]

down in the dust-bowl heart-land
2nd-biggest wildfire ever in u.s.:
bigger than rhode island
(poor rhode island)
melted light poles
burned-up homes
2 human beings dead
so far & all we get up here
is the smoke

"just my prediction,"
sez the tx. ag secy., "but
it will be 10,000 that will have died
or we'll have to euthanize" (meaning
cattle, that is) "it's sad. a lot of those cattle
are still alive but the
hooves are burned off, the teats
on their udders are burned off.
it's just a sad, sad situation."

the lord's will, i reckon. who
woulda thunk it?

"it's hard to watch," says rancer jeff chisum;
wife leigh drove by "baby calves standing
alone in the black, desolate pastures with
dead cows scattered along the roads"

plenty of palpable havoc;
must be some god
needed to make the connection to
invisible air around us

last week

"haze" descends
thousands of miles--
the ghost of a million trees

red zone--unhealthy
for everyone, sensitive
groups or not

this week

in kansas,
rains come
easing drought
brown back to green
for now

in libya,
11,300
children, adults
drowned or buried
in silt & sludge half-
burying cars & homes:
"storm daniel"
weakened dams

people
dessicated
washed out
outside
or in.

hottest july on planet earth
in 200,000 years. in august
wildfires scorch western maui
(another town burned to the ground);
106 dead humans as of today
1300 unaccounted for

charred body in car
charred body leaning on seawall
our pompeiis look like this these days

so i think maybe i gotta process
my eco-grief.    & eco-anxiety.
& eco-dread.    & eco-despair.
& eco-numbness     & eco-lalia,
maybe.     & eco-haustion, for sure--
lots of that.        i need to counter-
act the eco-doomscrolling & eco-
preciate the birds that do show up.
& get good at pretending

i’m already dead so
nothing can hurt me anymore.

do waste time mourning
and organize—that’s the ticket.
(or maybe “don’t waste time
writing chronicles—mourn!”)

first-of-season oriole
first-of-season warbling vireo
f.o.s. prothonotary warbler
f.o.s. great-crested flycatcher
bluebird          morning light &
savannah sparrow w/pale yellow
supercilium visible.

sierra club’s asking evergy to stop
its lawrence coal-fired power plant;
& evergy looks to be moving
forward on 2 solar projects here . . .
so how about some eco-hopefulness

all i want to know is
is there anybody out there?
& what would you do now?

redbuds leafing out:
i want to yell “wait!!”

most everything leafed out,
really, after summery temps

for a week or more:
hi’s in the 80s (norm upper 60s)

spring sprang in a jiffy;
expected duration: 20 minutes

but now? freeze warning tonite.
there goes the apple crop

not so many birds at the feeder,
not so many species of birds

petrocorps own the pols
petrocorps own the media

& our deepest desire
remains to avoid

disruptions to our live-
styles

& why not? it’s all we can do
to maintain them!

until we can’t, by when
older folks won’t be around

to do so & younger folks
won’t be able to anyway

a flicker drums on some-
body’s vent hood &

i resent the noise deeply:
too busy to get outside. & why.

got to do our duty, got to
keep from falling

“joe, are you on track
for your retirement goals?”

joe, are you on track
for your climate goals?

meanwhile, “monster
asian heat wave”--

all-time record hi’s in
thailand (113), laos (109)

schools shuttered in e. india;
record energy use in bangladesh

april records falling over
four corners of earth

& how many acres are burning?
is anybody keeping track?

northern thailand chokes in smoke,
hospitals full

snow, hail in saudi;   signs
taken for wonders or vice versa

meanwhile

all that snow up north, out west
begins to melt, meaning floods:

state of emerg in utah
advisories for minn. & dakotas

2 feet of rain fell w/in hours
on ft. lauderdale last week;

now the cleanup, & jenny sims says
“you know, we’re real people &

we don’t have a house. we feel
like nobody cares.”  

Wait . . . what? Already?? . . .

kearney, in c. neb., shivered at 34 f
tuesday, while falls city in the s.e.
hit 90. wch just means that
what happens in the arctic
doesn’t stay in the arctic

here on tues.: 87 f, 22 > “normal”;
& south of here, wildfires in okla.

earliest spring on record
across much of e. u.s.;
washington, d.c. hit 80 f
at 9 pm on wed.—everything
sinking towards the equator

calif. c. valley swamped:
tulare lake recollects itself
after it was drained 150 yrs ago

oodles of march records--
but those are just numbers

lots of deadly tornadoes killed
dozens of people the last
couple of weeks in u.s.--
“busiest” start to the season ever--
but no definite correlation
to climate disruption, so
we won’t talk about that

(tho’ t-storms becoming
more frequent and severe
as the planet heats up; &
t-storms have a way
of spawning twisters;
wch just means that
even some climate scientists
want to keep their funding.)

power faltering in abuja
amdist heatwave; ronz the tailor
says, "i have not been able
to complete my job for
the past five days now. no
light at all and nobody can explain
to us what is happening. i hear
they are rationing the light, but
quite frankly, there is no light to ration.”

meanwhile, in c. kenya,
george karanja says, “when
there is no water in the house,
i don’t think you can stay in that house--
especially with a wife and kids--
the house is uninhabitable w/o water!”
(same cd be sd for the world);
“every week we only get water twice,”
josephine nuduta reports,
“on tuesdays and fridays”
(don’t worry, global northerners:
it can’t happen here.
it can’t hap)

& s. ethiopia has it worse
“some are committing suicide
after failing to provide for their family,"
says jilo guracha. "we beg
the government to save us from
dying of hunger until god brings us rain.”
(& some are getting the hell out)

meanwhile, in mozambique, post-
cyclone-freddy, 19k humans
infected w/cholera
 
gather ye rosebuds while ye may
earlier than ever

everybody says we can turn
things around—the technologies
are available, it just takes
a will to change

co2 at 420 ppm: all-time high

the climate scientists are freaked,
but i’m not.                 my secret?
don’t listen to the climate scientists.

but i can’t ignore potholes.

that dern freeze-thaw cycle
(wch we’ve cycled through a lot this winter)
makes ‘em.        (all the stuff
you don’t think of . . .)

hot here friday—10 f > norm:
already in the 70s; but
france already in the 80s;
heat waves, forest fires
already underway in iberia
(special masses for rain
said in catalonia);
tunisia cuts off water at night

"we are concerned that if the drought
persists, the water supply would be
reduced and we will end up without water"
(negril, jamaica)

& remember the massive pakistan floods?
well, now they’re heading toward
water shortages . . .

moreover,
1m s. korean people face water crisis
“i also save water in the sink. we do
he laundry when there’s tap water
two times a week. we are just waiting
for rain to drop.”  water also running out
around phnom penh: “we were forced
to buy water from a water truck for $10
for five tanks, but for those who do not
have the money, it is difficult for them”

& 80% of kansas wheat crop in
lousy shape

(“yes, yes, yes—ok ok ok--
we know it’s global warming,
climate change, bad bad bad,
yadda yadda yadda—why
do you keep repeating the
disasters?”)

(b/c disasters keep repeating?
 the most important story
 in world history can’t go
 without an epic chronicle,
 even a lousy one—&
 nobody’s writing it)

for california, drought-deluge cycle:
they’re on their—what?—17th?
atmospheric river of the season--
from record drought to record snowpack
(& back again this fall?
feb. driest in u.k. in 30 yrs.
march wettest in u.k. in 40 yrs.)

argentina, world’s biggest exporter
of soy oil and meal, now
net importer of soybeans (drought);
but rain rain rain inundates
peru, brazil, ecuador

australian cattle town “wiped
off the map”: "We are working to
tidy things up. we're looking at ...
whether to rebuild or relocate."

& the award for “most accumulated
energy, longest-lasting and most
cycles of intensification” goes to . . .
cyclone freddy!

results?
707 humans dead (as of 3/29)
1300 injured
556 missing
508,000 displaced
triple-digit food inflation for malawi

(how few of news stories
quote the humans affected.
how few of the voices
we hear here.)

There is indeed forward movement . . .    (Washington Post graphic)

“in feb. 2021, winter storm uri created
energy shortages across the central u.s.
as a result, evergy kansas central
experienced extraordinary costs related
to generating, purchasing, and delivering
power to its customers during the storm.

“the kansas corporation commission
[oh, ye so aptly named!]
has approved an agreement
allowing evergy to recover those costs,
outlined in docket no. 21-ekme-329-gie.

“evergy works closely with state regulators
[how true]   to keep energy costs
as low as possible, even in extraordinary
circumstances like storm uri. in fact,
customers of electric utilities in other uri-
effected [sic] states will likely have larger per-
customer recovery costs than evergy’s.”
[see—you’re lucky!]

one could be forgiven for asking
why we are paying extra at all—or who
was charging evergy extra during
a time of extraordinary need, or what
will happen to those persons
for doing so

but i think we already know

& yes there are those worse off:

43k human beings died in the drought
in somalia last year, ½ children
[per w.h.o. & u.n.i.c.e.f.
“vampiric” water use: i.p.c.c.]

hottest march day on records:
vietnam; seoul; 20% of japan

cherry blossoms blossom
record-early again; spring
springs record-early again
(& allergies)—earliest-ever
for n.y.c.—throwing everything
off-schedule & out of whack

& 80% of german trees suffer
dieback due to 5-yr drought

meanwhile

“unseasonal rain and hailstorms”
damaged crops in india, “exposing
1000s of farmers to losses &
raising the risk of further food
price inflation”

½ of malawi in ruins post-freddy:
“climate change issues are real;
we are standing right in the path of it;
it can keep a nation like malawi
in perpetual poverty,” sez the prez.
[latest count 438 human beings killed]

“catastrophic level of water”
cover farms in central valley (calif.);
maybe 100k acres underwater
sez tulare co. farm bureau dude

all of which is to say up-
statistics don’t do you any good
if yr crop is flooded, your country
bedroughted, yr family washed away,
or prices for yr food & energy keep
rising & then rising some more--
not as long as the fossil(fuel) corpos,
their pet pols & “regulators” keep
greenwashing their way to our
oblivionousness, showing us
one step forward
for every two back

“arctic sea ice melting irreversible”

    make plans to buy that beach house today!

nova scotia’s warmest january ever

    storm-proof your home--today!

niagara falls boat tours start earlier than ever

    where do you wanna go today, 1st worlder?!

allergy season starting earlier every year

    plan that next marathon today!

hundreds of humans killed by cyclone freddy,
longest-lived cyclone ever (?)

    consider e.t.f.s or index funds
    to ensure retirement leisure today!

nor’easter heralds spring; 100k’s w/o power

    padre island never looked so good as today!

deadly flooding, landslides hit
peru, brazil, turkiye, saudi, queensland
(limit yr movements—riles the crocs)

    ask your agent today why
    your homeowner’s keeps going up!

argentina’s hottest summer ever

    plan for malbec w/any cheese board!

46m usamericans w/o safe water

    zip to the grocery store for that
    (more expensive) loaf of bread today!

longest-ever rainless stretch in france;
driest winter; 11 depts. limit water

    study abroad! build yr resume!
    get good grades! beat out
    the competition! think of your
    future! everyone’s
    the competition!  today!

po river 3.3 m. < norm; ⅓ italian crops threatened

    get into all the cooking shows;
    take up sourdough baking today!

highest-ever temp in n. hemisphere
for first half of march (115 f, senegal)

    they say you can retire in mexico
    for a fraction of what it costs here today!

“my best friend, her brother, sister, and mother
went with the mudslide”

    if interest rates went down
    we’d buy today!

“their bodies have never been found.
it’s devastating.”

    retirement might seem far away,
    but start your 401(k) today--
    yr future self will thank you!

“you can’t even mourn”

    thrilled to announce my new book!

337 active forest fires in india; methane
chokes locals as “trash mt.” in kerala burns

    grateful to x journal for publishing my poem
    in today's issue!

warmest ever early march in china

    we have two today, but we want four--
    better chance of grandkids (ha ha)!

highest march temp ever for uruguay (104)

    the condition is treatable, though
    treatments are expensive & must be
    continued indefinitely. get started today--
    click here!

“declare emergency now or we die,
kenya state governor says”

    but there are still plenty of s.t.e.m. jobs today!

plains groundwater level biggest drop since 2012

    the new willow field will ensure
    our nation’s energy independence
    for decades to come, today!

11th “atmospheric river” for soggy california

    “greek salad will be the least
    of our worries," sez the article today.

“pray for malaysia”
(26k humans displaced by floods);

don’t tell first-worlders
about mass casualties in
the global south: you’ll
numb them to the truth
if you tell them the truth

maybe if they can’t afford
their homeowner’s premiums
they’ll get it. but other
people? . . .

tigris & euphrates drying up;
as in kenya, herds gnaw grass
down to nubs; herders turn to over-
fishing desert lakes. drought
kills.   (thoughts * prayers)

meanwhile,
earliest-ever 40 c (104 f)
recorded in u.s.
(falcon lake, s. tx, wed.);
w. texas chokes in dust storms:
“lubbock & nearby towns look like
they were plucked out
of star wars”
(cool sunsets, tho)

e. us. (& mexico) hot & dry;
california coming out of drought
(kinda sorta: groundwater
still low)—186% norm-to-date snow
(up to 15’—when it rains,
it snows, as they say out yonder);
meanwhile, mallorca gets 16”

hottest feb. on record in india:
“wheat farmers in northern states
in a panic state . . .”

(& why even mention
chinese provinces?)

however: “much of the northern
hemisphere is struggling w/ drought,
as europe experiences an unusually
warm, precipitation-free winter”
“argentina’s economy faces the prospect
of a ‘hard landing’ scenario this year
as a crop drought deepens
expectations of a larger downturn, say
analysts at j.p. morgan chase”

& the blind poet-chronicler,
who can’t tell nobody’s listening,
continues the tale, even tho
his hydropower is low, he’s
dehydrated, he’s
running out of steam

3 yrs next month
& not a new normal yet
to shake a stick at . . .