by Danielle Gilmour

In 1994, when global warming was buried
within the back pages of the paper folded
behind the crossword to be pored over later
and before I knew about the clouds gathering
deep in the folds of his prefrontal cortex, I would perch
at the pine kitchen table
heat sinking out through my feet into oxblood
tiles and watch my grandfather in his morning ritual
of leaving the bread in the toaster
until clouds of smoke emerge in billows.
He would poke around with a knife to free
the blackened wedge from its radiating clasps then proceed
to scrape across the chalky crusts
thick butter spread with sooty swirls, his stiff upper lip curls
animating his moustache like pearly angel wings.
“Nothing wrong with a bit of charcoal”, he’d say, “aids the digestion.”
This is not a forgetting.
I hope that what they say about ancestral wisdom is true
and that this is not the only kernel that travels through.
Later that day he’d forget my name and that he’d already sorted
the cutlery drawer just moments before.

In 2001 the Bush administration
sought to withdraw from the Kyoto agreement declaring it had
“no interest”
in its implementation.
And my grandfather had forgotten
how he liked to forget about the toast.
And how he could swallow it down.
And it seemed to me fitting that he would be
burned
enveloped in dark shrouds
pouring down to the ground
I heard that when they scattered his ashes
on Burton Dasset
it was a windy day and he flew
into their faces like he still had
something
to say.

And this morning a jury found six XR rebels “not guilty” of criminal damage
against a fossil fuel giant despite the judge saying they had no defense in court.
And this morning
my son
appears next to me
as I’m making breakfast
standing on a chair
in pants and bare feet,
his body soft and hair not yet unfolded
to the day
but his prefrontal cortex
has brought him
as a matter of urgency– “Mummy?”
he says to me
“put the toast down a bit longer-
I like it a bit burnt”
So, we watch
and wait patiently for
the first
thin
pillars of
smoke
to
rise.