Mowing in March

It’s enough not to have winter.

But to have summer in spring is too much.

Eighties in the daytime; sixties at night; me, Irish by thermostat, intolerant of any heat whatsoever, waking, sweating, at 4 am.

I’m watching from a window now as a neighbor chops grass, leaving only me, the intractable neighbor, yet to get with the program, everyone else in the neighborhood, in the last week, subscripting two weeks’ of 80s with gas-propelled high-5s.

But we’re talking March 25^th.

The season only sipping spring, hardly summer.

And the neighbors, my neighbors, happily mowing in March.

And me looking to Earth, noting these temperatures, rivers flowing in Antarctica, glaciers melting anything but glacially here, there, everywhere. Glacier Park itself set to lose its name, if not in my lifetime, certainly my children’s; the glaciers it was named for a given, any time before mine, before ours.

And me, looking to the nearest corner, the majority of vehicles, SUVs, slurping, sucking, gasoline, even as we worry that Iran might choke the Straits of Hormuz, throttle our lifeline to what we need most to make tomorrow, well, tomorrow.

Making tomorrow.

For my kids. Yours.

Our grandchildren.

Dare we think, theirs.

Twenty years ago, a friend, a dear friend, chalked the present to the future, thinking he’d be gone before the worst.

He’s still here.

So, potentially is the worst.

I cannot imagine a world without glaciers being glaciers. Without, in my loved Vermont, winter, winter. Without, even here in Iowa, some balance between a corn-and-soybean summer and icicled winter.

But mowing in March.

Mowing in March…