Wickedly Witchy October Weather for Currently
Climate & Weather Forecast Poetry for Washington, DC
Hello witches and spooks alike, I’m writing weather reports for Currently’s Washington, DC newsletter. Here’s more about Currently—
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Witchy & Wicked October Weather
Monday, October 18th, 2021
Something wicked’s already here
You feel it in freaky Monday air
Creeping chill out of a haunted Mansion
With 10-20 mph winds, up to 30 mph expansion
The winds are North West born, but the haunt’s from the West
West Virginia, that is, the horror of “not surprised— depressed”
The horror of men possessed by coal profit
The ghost of our worsening climate.Yet something clear this way comes
In evening’s skies, with gusts calming
In the grace of good ghosts, whispering ancestors
Yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s resisters
From folks still fighting, on the job
For a better future, we can’t stop won’t stop.
Tuesday, October 19th, 2021
Tuesday’s weather is less dark-cackle and more pleasant-guffaw. With the Sun unshackled from their bindings, and much calmer winds clawing, take solace in the solar rise. Actually, take a couple agile sunrays from those robin blue skies. Tuck them in your satchel for later, or if you’re a thin-blooded witch like me, in the pocket of a light cloak you carry. Power through early 50s-60s temps and every arising omen with your coven of the caring. Like Metro operating at severely reduced capacity intervening, focus your magic on what you can do to get through to the mostly clear evening.
Wednesday, October 20th, 2021
Wednesday presents DC a beautiful show of more sunny skies. Starring mid-70s day highs and a full moonlit night. Like magic - or maybe, in our climate emergency, more like a magic trick.
Like “utility companies are already transitioning.” An illusion. POOF! Now we see clean energy investments, now we don’t. A carbon-fueled foist. Like that trick sawing a bill in ever-smaller cuts. Or the trick of sticking a box of bad systems with more sharp swords. Or the one floating a glowing orb out of reach.
But climate catastrophe isn’t an illusion, and none of that’s actual magic. All devious tricks. There’s real power in helping everyone do their part for a renewable future. But those tricks ain’t it.
Thursday, October 21st, 2021
Thursday’s still under the spell of the sun, another magical/horrifying climate-reminding warmer-than-average one. Another Autumn cloak-in-the-morning, shorter-sleeves-during-the-day journey, with evening getting partly cloudy.
A SPELL FOR CHANGE
Drink water. Relax your jaw. Stretch and stand
Then repeat this aside- outside if you can:
May we feel familiar - all living creatures under the sun
Interconnected, empowered, intersecting with action.
May we release the fossil-fueled stranglehold
On our democracy and be bold,
Like the sun’s pointed rays
Making tomorrow with what we have today.
Bind us to the moral imperative
To be the ancestors our ancestors deserve.
Friday, October 22nd, 2021
A chill creeps early Friday, closing the week’s grimoire with cooler and cloudier bookends. Sun blinks, batting shining lashes through a breeze blowing the partly cloudy morning into a mostly cloudy evening. With a coat or hoodie, layer up as needed.
Here’s Friday magic far more powerful than anything I could conjure:
Join the #HungerStrikeForClimate - in solidarity or in-person, with ways to support here.
Call Biden with @GND_Network to #StopLine3 and spread within your covens.
Let’s make some magic, witches.
— Adam Powers