All the years I waited through winter
for summer, it's warm and calm breezes,
sinking toes into beach sand, lying
in green grass under slow clouds
drifting as if going nowhere, nowhere.

Playing catch with my cousin, bikes
out all along the Monument Road
to where, in winter, ski slopes rose
above Silver Creek, and in summer
all green wood and forgotten meadows.

We did not know what would come
of summer when we also silver were, 
that it would not be what it always was
that healing season after the winter storms.

Now I wish for autumn leaves, the coming
of rain and cold - healing after burned leaves,
drowned fields, the empty air where once
swirled myriad butterflies, birds and bees.
Where the species once abundant
swarming in all the fields, forests, and farms? 

I will take a breath in autumn, a deep breath
as calm, as balm watching the rain fall
hearing it on the roof, pooling in the ruts.
Here is the cool wind from the west
that brings an end to summer
and to what summer has become.
_________________________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - September 29, 2021

I write from the Pacific Northwest of America.  While other places in America and the world experienced devastating rains and flooding, we experienced devastating heat and drought.  I support the fullest of the Green New Deal to begin to take seriously the effects of human caused climate change.