poetry

the fire break holds

the fire break holds

it’s like a dream:
the pink lines hold
and the land stays land
and the sky stays sky
with only a hotspot here and there

how long will we have
before the great spatula comes
and mixes things again?

poetry

NCAR Fire

NCAR Fire

the land itself belches smoke
long columns stretch to sky

we haven’t seen them linked before
these realms of earth and air

no safe time now
no safe place

every day the possibility
that earth will stream to sky

poetry

unprepared for the future

unprepared for the future

I had seen it on Twitter –
the slurry bomber painting hills I know red –
but that didn’t prepare me
for magenta slashes across our landscape
visible miles away

just one more sign
I’m unprepared for the scale
of the crisis we’re in

fire everywhere
everywhen
our relationship with the land
will never be the same

our children will not know
how it was to live with smokeless skies
before the hockey stick curve
made itself felt
in our choking air