This is the first post of the Finding Humour in the Environmental History of the Climate Crisis series edited by Nuala Proinnseas Caomhánach.

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So much of nature writing, particularly nature poetry, is affectively serious, sincere, sappy or sentimental. It is almost always polite or pretty. And it so often assumes the form of encomium or eulogy. Though there is a lot of potential provided by other affective modes, particularly that of ambivalence, when we let the complexities of contradiction rest as is, rather than require they be resolved, when we let the world be broken and beautiful, disgustingly delicious, delightfully defective, a resplendent mess not entirely managed.

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ode to the kiddy pool

oh baby, it’s so damn hot.

a hazy, heavy heat,

a stifling, stultifying heat;

it’s horrendous, really. 

and yet, the tiny yard of my teeny rental

has a water feature:

the plastic kiddie pool,

purchased from Walmart when the weather started to warm, 

is a shiny and smooth blue high-density polyethylene majesty.

but because we’re running low on water out here in the west,

or maybe because I run low on patience,

I only ever fill it up halfway.

so I sit in what’s more puddle than pool,

in my brown grass and bits of gravel yard

in unceremonious contemplation,

as my cat chomps on grasshoppers.

the air smells of my neighbor’s chain smoking habit.

his name is Virgil, and

he’s a Vietnam veteran with

a practice of putting out pet food for the raccoons.

I attempt to attend to the terrestrial in this Divine Comedy, 

and it seems that maybe, just maybe,

this little urban ecosystem is doing alright.

oh baby, it’s so damn hot.

and it’s only getting hotter—but,

popsicles are sticky sweet, and I 

prefer to be nude anyway.

Salt Lake City, August 2022

Feature image courtesy of Madeleine Bavley.