Warm and dry. Freezing cold. Wet, wet, too wet.

Rain that keeps falling for days on end, until the soil can no longer take it. Waves of water and mud sweeping, devastating villages. Mud and water, so much water.

Droughts. Dry grass crumbing beneath my feet. Dust. Smoke. Too much smoke. Smoke so thick I can hardly breathe. A bag is sitting near the door, ready to leave if and when the fire gets near. Fear, uncertainty, panic even.

In a few months, almost forgotten. It’s cold, so cold. The engine of the car coughs, chokes on the dry cold. Too cold. Children are kept inside. Their little toes so fagile they surely will get bitten by frost.

Everything is still. Life is frozen into place.

The next day, the sun shines bright. A curtain was lifted. The air feels warm. The bird’s song is thawed.

Spring is back, or is summer here?

And so this confused, foolish cycle begins again. This force pushes hordes of being, humans and wild alike, on an exile, a migration. For a day, a lifetime.

Climate, atmosphere, gas, ocean temperature, greenhouse; Earth in the pressure cooker. Stewed and overcooked.

Time to release the valve.