Truth to Power: A Villanelle.

Recently: August 20th - watched new #AlGore film: concerns re-awakened, making me want to capture them in a Villanelle to use the repetitive emphases of that form of poem. August 25th More difficult than expected but poem completed. Then August 26th see news of extreme monsoon rain in Bangladesh India and Nepal; storm Harvey and the catastrophe of Texas and now Louisiana. Our hearts go out to the huge number of people afflicted - and with the shocking thought that all of us in the West have, in very high probability, contributed to the awfulness.

Expect more weather of wildest extremes.

Until we replace every fossil fuel

We’ll see murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

The stuff of nightmares, not rosy dreams.

Winds and storms frequently, massive and cruel;

Expect more weather of wildest extremes;

Ugly smogs blanket dense urban scenes,

CO₂’s impact on planet, lethal,

As more murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

Polar ice dies; its melting rates obscene

Confirm climatology is truthful. 

Expect more weather of wildest extremes;

Wildfires to make tired firefighters blaspheme,

Long droughts render farms unsustainable,           

Elsewhere murderous floods supplant gentle streams.

Campaign for change: don’t look on, resentful,

Mount challenges to power proving neglectful.

Expect more weather of wildest extremes,
As those murderous floods supplant gentle streams.