In this personal narrative from Torrey House Press’ Voices Rising collection, Ayja Bounous describes her profound connections with her grandfather and the land she grew up on. She parallels descriptions of her aging grandfather with the changing landscape in the Wasatch Mountains, Utah; she explains that time wears on her grandfather’s silvery hairline the same way climate change has gradually receded glaciers and snow. Bounous describes the frustration she feels when her grandparents fail to take climate concerns seriously, knowing that there will still be snow on the ground when their lives come to an end, but there is no guarantee that the same can be said for her own generation. This knowledge leads to Bounous’ declaration that she will spend her life fighting to protect the earth.
