Waking to an overcast day. A stiff wind continues to blow. There’s some relief from the high gusts of yesterday which transported a dust storm, yes giant horizon-wide clouds of yellow-grey field soil from farms to the distant west. A dust storm in Chicago. This is the American mid-west, not a middle eastern country adjacent to the Sahara desert. This morning my vehicle was coated with a layer of grit. Change formerly known because of reports, is now becoming visible. And not only here.

Rapid climate change, and disruption in usual weather patterns occur elsewhere. In this mornings The Japan Times I read a report about this year’s rainy season:

Japan’s rainy season appears to have begun in the southern part of the Kyushu region, the Meteorological Agency announced Friday.

This is the first time since statistics began in 1951 that southern Kyushu has entered the rainy season earlier than any other region in Japan.

The start of the rainy season in the region also comes 14 days earlier than usual, and 23 days earlier than last year.

The article notes how unusual for the seasonal rain front to extend so far north. Changes such as this matter. Weather and climate are our labels for the planets dynamic respiration. We intimately depend upon these life-like systems to grow food, to sustain ourselves.

We have ‘fucked up’ nature, and America in particular doubles-down, pedal-to-the-metal policies of rejection, denial of the consequences, the inevitable effect of our desired lifestyle. Other people are dragged after us…

So, here is a poem. I think the poem is a particularly apt rendering of a dominant profile of America. I received the poem by subscribing to poem-a-day from the Academy of American Poets. If you’d like to subscribe CLICK HERE.

Anthem for America

by Varsha Saraiya-Shah

     an Abecedarian

Allegiance to the flag is a start. A promise.
Begin there, says the teacher.
Come, and we’ll climb the Hill at sunup,
Daring, not disruptive. Dusk metes out mornings for
Everyone who makes room
For freedom to mold another day, a lump of soft clay.
Go places, let my guitar emulate Leonard Cohen’s
Hallelujah, we will rock Hendrix style. Let Lennon sing:
It’s so hard, to sing for America. Imagine!
Just once, can we figure how to rebel this—what
Karma will justify sedition to reclaim a lost election?
Liberty gasping between light & the dark. To
Man up takes bravery, says the teacher.
Now, now, how did we get here, asks a student.
O, tell us how, you self-
Possessed Patriots.
Quickness is not the order of time, said an elder.
Repeatedly we vowed persistence,
Stood reigning just like dawn & dusk, till
Truth, the goddess of life gonged.
Untethered you’ll arrest the truth, &
Vision too will wane if only a biased whim.
We are You—Us is America,
XY YX XXXY YXY, limitless
Yes! Proclaim: P for peace, E for earth, A for all.
Zero in on C for climate, E for equality. Our unity.

about this poem

“On January 6, 2021, a mob attacked the United States Capitol viciously; it was widely reported as an attempted coup d’état. The emotional division of her people in loss of faith in its hard-earned democracy inspired this anthem using the poetic form, abecedarian. It invokes guidance from teachers and elders and legends like [Leonard] Cohen and [John] Lennon to reimagine coming together, from A to Z.”

—Varsha Saraiya-Shah

Varsha Saraiya-Shah is a first-generation Indian American poet and the author of the poetry chapbook Voices (Finishing Line Press, 2016). She lives and works in Houston.