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Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Is Climate Change A Mythology?

Chapter 4

A Poem – Athens

They used to be strangers in the night,
But in the epoch of the Anthropocene,
They have now become unlikely lovers,
Dancing in each other’s arms, in vastly different scenes.

Zeus’s thunderbolts and Prometheus’s flames,
Seldom graced the cold crispy Nordic skies.
But the recent Scandinavian fires – and those in Siberia too –
Have proven it’s otherwise.

Ullr and Skaoi, Nordic god and goddess
Of winter and skis, bring the gift of snow
To the deserts in Texas
And the Parthenon of Athens.

But beneath those ancient brown Grecian stones,
Which are now painted fleshly white,
Lurks another evil deed of Khione;
Harbinger of the Apocalypse.

Let’s help Hope to hop out of the Pandora’s Box,
To create from its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
Then all man’s misdeeds since seventeen sixty
Will be redeemed in this new millennial age.

Footnote:

In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving (particularly the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).

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1. Is Climate Change A Mythology? Chapter 4
  
  A Poem – Athens
  
  They used to be strangers in the night,
  But in the epoch of the Anthropocene,
  They have now become unlikely lovers,
  Dancing in each other’s arms, in vastly different scenes.
  
  Zeus’s thunderbolts and Prometheus’s flames,
  Seldom graced the cold crispy Nordic skies.
  But the recent Scandinavian fires – and those in Siberia too –
  Have proven it’s otherwise.
  
  Ullr and Skaoi, Nordic god and goddess
  Of winter and skis, bring the gift of snow
  To the deserts in Texas
  And the Parthenon of Athens.
  
  But beneath those ancient brown Grecian stones,
  Which are now painted fleshly white,
  Lurks another evil deed of Khione;
  Harbinger of the Apocalypse.
  
  Let’s help Hope to hop out of the Pandora’s Box,
  To create from its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
  Then all man’s misdeeds since seventeen sixty
  Will be redeemed in this new millennial age.
  
  Footnote:
  
  In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving (particularly the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).