This is not the time?

Image courtesy of the author

Take the full measure of this opportunity for grief,
in all its particulars and atmosphere-of-Venus scenarios,
but do not grieve?

Take the measure of Arctic death spiral
and 65 feet of sea level rise
and 210 feet of sea level rise.
Take them in, bring them to a seat in your mind
and hear their stories, follow their line of progression,
feel their incision,
but do not grieve?

Bundle and grasp fine arcing strands of tree-ring data and
ice-core data and carbon-isotope analyses.

Feel the wicked geometry of the Keeling curve.
Feel the curve of marine acidity, and the curve of
hemispheric methane concentrations and the curve of
the humid heat death index, each with its footnotes and
its estimation methodologies and its error bars and
its italicized warning of misery to come.
Feel them carve a channel through your abdomen.
But do not grieve?

Meditate upon the depravity of fossil carbon executives
calculating profit curves and drinking smooth whiskey
with PR consultants and lawyers in slick suits.

Meditate upon billionaires and would-be-billionaires
buying think tanks and editorial pages,
threading slender curves of deception into the neurons of
Wisconsin and Nordrhein-Westfalen and the driest Australian province.

But do not grieve?

Feel the curves slice through your flesh.
Bring your cheek to the soil.
Gain a line of sight to your grandchildren and
the grandchildren of your grandchildren.
Measure the angles and tangents, do the math
as your cheek conforms to pebble and twig and cinder.
As your eyes become caked with mud,
as your ears ring,
calculate the regression and count up the exponents.
But do not grieve?

Rise and stagger back from the perimeter of your grief?

Jeff Howard is a climate and environmental policy analyst and sometime activist and teaches environmental studies at the University of Connecticut. He has a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies. His recent collection Edge/Of is available here. 

(c) 2021 Jeff Howard