Summer Grief

My summer memories include 
June bugs
fireflies
cicadas
butterflies
bats—
all in abundance.

I remember visiting the beach
finding sand dollars, picking them up, taking them home.
By my teen years, I learned they were alive!
I urged others to please — please — help them back into the water. 
Now, it’s been years since these memories and since I’ve seen one.
Where have all the sand dollars gone?
On the endangered species list.

The summer I turned 18, the radio played on repeat: 
“Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”
But I didn’t want a cowboy then. 
I don’t want one now.
I want sand dollars.
And bats
butterflies
cicadas
fireflies
June bugs.
All in abundance?
Now rarely seen.

I want the sounds of summer to be alive,
not muffled by electric hums of data centers.
I want the land full of insects flying and hopping,
not struggling to find one another.
I want the buzz of crickets and frogs calling to one another,
not few and far between.

My heart hurts,
as the nights are far too quiet —
a loss of company, of life all around.
And the buzzes are all wrong — 
electric, not insect,
life-denying, not life-giving.

I’ve been tinkering with this poem since June, when I noticed how few firefly lights were present at dusk, and as the summer has gone on, I’ve been noticing — and grieving — more and more. Climate catastrophes continue at a rapid rate. Neighbors near and far, human and nonhuman, are impacted. I keep reading versions of the sentiment that this scorching hot summer is also “the coolest summer for the rest of our lives.” Perhaps future summers will be characterized as much by grief and the reckoning of loss as by any “summer fun” or “summer sounds.” Certainly, we need climate action now.

I share this poem on August 31st, my mom’s first birthday since her passing. I appreciate how my mom Sue became vegan in her last decade. She was always learning and unlearning how she wanted to live. She was especially concerned about the planet warming and climate crisis. I think of her as I hold summer memories and imagine summers to come. 

Writing toward justice ~ environmental justice, social justice, racial justice, gender justice, disability justice, economic justice ~ Beth

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This post is written by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. (she/her) for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice. Subscribe to the email newsletter for regular updates, including for upcoming writing groups, retreats, and coaching.

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• “Do Vegans Kill Spiders? Recognizing Fears and Others’ Right to Exist”
• “Vegan for Environmental Justice”