"Though our traditions served us well,
No longer must we wait
On them," said the young fool in the north.
"Now we have glyphosate.
Instead of burning strips of pine trees
We might easily sell,
We'll kill all other things but pines
That dry and burn so well."
And so they did, that spring. That summer
Miles of pine trees burned;
The smoke lay heavy on the land.
Yet autumn soon returned.
Fools don't learn. That's what makes them fools.
Next year they did the same.
For many miles away, folks choked
On smoke. They were to blame.
"Though glyphosate is killing people,
We can spare some numbers,"
The old fool in the south said. "Onward
The Economy lumbers!
Let more old folk die younger! Let
The young produce more babies!
And have a War, to thin the herd!
And..." you know. Christian? Maybe his
Claim to conversion's real, but his brain's
Not attuned to the Spirit,
And he must be struck down and blinded
So that he can hear it.
Is poison worse if made in China?
So he bloviated.
Who sells you poison's not your friend.
Hunched in his web, he waited
To see more spraying in the north
Bring back the choking pall
Of smoke that drifts from north to south.
Then, well known for his gall,
He blamed the north for fouling air
People breathe in the south,
And, far from help to fight the fire
Before the south's own drought...
Forgive us, Lord, both south and north.
The east has too much rain,
While once again a deadly drought
Has gripped the central plain.
Please waken people in the north,
Convict them of their sins,
And westward blow our surplus rain,
So everybody wins.
(Cut-off point for tired eyes)
For those who've not been paying attention...These are just some popular links from Google. If you dig you can rake up even muckier stories, conspiracy theories, etc. I don't want to bother. This is a legitimate news story the CBC, the BBC, Reuters, etc., have covered, but not publicized well due to their Trusted News Initiative mandate to smother stories about what's wrong with sponsors' profitable products under layers of celebrity gossip and silly quibbles. The big US news outlets have tried to avoid this story altogether. Ignoring it's not going to make it go away.
Canada's spraying glyphosate on the old forests that might be considered among its great treasures:
Canada's claim on reciprocal help to fight its ensuing wildfires:
Trump's un-neighborly and hubristic response to that claim:
The Cat Sanctuary is currently in one of those weather patterns, described in old British and Western European folklore, where rain on (local lore disagrees on exactly which day) a certain day in early July indicates that more rain is going to fall on every one of the next forty days. In the US this rain usually occurs as part of thunderstorms. The lights didn't go out yesterday or last night but I unplugged the computers, just in case, four times. One day last week, by chance, rain didn't fall on the Cat Sanctuary itself but we could see it a few miles away. Tennessee had floods the weekend before last. New York City had floods last weekend. We could spare a little of that rain, and how gladly we would, if it were in our power to send a good natural water-bombing to Canada.
But who knows? If Canadians confess and renounce their sins, show a healthy distrust of those in the US and China trying to sell them more of the poison that plays such an obvious role in this sudden explosion of wildfires, maybe God will help us all with a helpful weather pattern. It's worth trying.
This poem was provoked by last weekend's Poets & Storytellers United prompt. Google's blog feed has been malfunctioning recently so I received the link only on Monday night. The poem that came to mind seemed topical enough for a Thursday post here, so here it is. I'll try to post a more cheerful poem to the PSU link-up on Friday, as well as the one on Substack.
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