The summer came burning from two horizons,
a brass coin pressed to the world's wide brow;
in late June, North America tightened its furnace,
and the ordinary air forgot how to be ordinary.
Across the United States, a thousand five hundred
daily records cracked in June's white glare;
not one great trumpet, but a thousand small warnings
falling through the heat like splinters of glass.
Ottawa, July first: the humidex climbed to forty-six—
one hundred fifteen degrees, the city held in steam;
ten, fifteen degrees beyond the season's promise,
breath becoming labour, shade becoming a dream.
Then westward, eastward, Europe counted five waves
before August had finished writing its name;
at Mora, Portugal, May arrived already burning—
forty point three, and spring went up in flame.
The old records—May, springtime—gave way beneath it;
August laid forty across the continental stone.
Fields held their breath. Bells rang in empty villages.
Night offered no coolness of its own.
Yet everywhere, hands reached for one another:
a neighbour's fan, a doorway, water passed around;
the small republics of care made shelter
where the weather had unmade the ground.
Remember this summer not as a single sun,
but as the world learning the shape of heat—
records breaking, oceans of air rising,
and human hearts refusing to retreat.
— Envoy