Eternal Summer by Fred Slusher

they only know what they have been given, which is a land maligned, a land deprived of its beasts of change.

sometimes i can just feel it:
warmth & all the other things 
i’ve never asked for seeping
into me, a violation to the x 
degree. what is wrong in a
world where one can’t shed 
the shackles of summer & 
sink into the blissful autumn 
like a child into a mountain of 
leaves? these children don’t
know the seasons. they only 
know what they have been 
given, which is a land maligned,
a land deprived of its beasts of 
change. if i had been told i’d 
be forced to live in an eternal 
summer, i would have remained 
in embryo, in ectoplasm, in
a dream had right before waking. 
when i see someone wearing a 
coat it pisses me off. i want to 
ask them what it is that chills 
them in a world on fire? i want to 
slap their smug self-satisfied grins 
until their ears ring. is speaking 
the truth now an act of unspeakable 
violence? 

Haiku season is (temporarily) over, so I’m back to posting original non-haiku poetry on here. I wrote Eternal Summer in a fit of rage. I was sitting in my living room reading reports of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida alongside reports about record-breaking temperatures on the West Coast and the increasing likelihood of more wildfires. We are seeing the first waves of the effects of climate change on our ecosystems, and some days I can’t help but feel a sense of utter despair over it.

We are seeing the first waves of the effects of climate change on our ecosystems, and some days I can’t help but feel a sense of utter despair over it.

Rather than acting expeditiously to help the world reach net zero carbon emissions, most governments, municipalities, and MNCs seem content to pay lip service to sustainability and clean energy initiatives while acting as if they have decades to figure this out—they don’t. Others seem to be banking on nascent carbon capture technologies to act as their get out of jail free card when what we really need is aggressive action now. Not tomorrow. Not in the next decade. Now. Our lives quite literally depend on it.

Wow, so this post is a prime example of how my ADHD brain works. I started off sharing a poem and ended on an urgent call-to-action on curbing the effects of climate change. All in a day’s work, my reader-friends.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Eternal Summer © 2021 Fred Slusher. All rights reserved.