npm2: "I like to fix things"

Today's story is a true one from my literal front yard, and linked to my source book only generally so far.  But I think it also reflects our rushed and wasteful suburban culture, addressed in that Wakanda essay I referred to in yesterday's post.

 

<poem>

 

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My project for NPM 2022:

 

This month I'm "Mak[ing] human stories to move human beings.  Human stories are more powerful for inciting action than counting carbon or detailing melting glaciers." (Favianna Rodriguez, from her essay "Harnessing Cultural Power," in ALL WE CAN SAVE.)

My challenge to myself is to center our fabulous, ferocious human stories in the poems I write in response to ALL WE CAN SAVE--not my standard approach to writing, which usually centers...well, me.

 

So I'm working principally with narrative about others, bringing what I'm learning about how we can save our foolish human asses from ourselves by connecting to the people--including us--whose very existence is threatened, now and in the near future, by unchecked climate chaos, and who are doing the work to reverse it.

I note that *ahem* today's poem is again mainly a poem about me, as well as my stranger-neighbors.  Kind of a narrative, yes, but like I said--writing about other people is outside my hose-reel-house!

"It isn't a matter of moving climate change further up our priority list. The reason we care about [climate change] is because it affects everything that's already at the top of our priority list: our health, our families, our jobs and the economy, the well-being of our communities... To care about a changing climate we don't have to be a tree hugger or an environmentalist (though it certainly helps); as long as we are humans alive today, then who we already are, and what we already care about, gives us all the reasons we need."

Katharine Hayhoe, "How to Talk About Climate Change,"

ALL WE CAN SAVE: TRUTH, COURAGE, AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS