Wildfire Season

.

It’s four in the morning.

The end of May.

I’m awake,

maybe for the first time

in a while.

As if I have been asleep

for many miles

and this has all been

a bad dream.

Even the good parts

fold into the terrible ones.

And I’ve been so tired,

so lost,

and so afraid.

So afraid to speak

what is really on my mind.

The truth just sits there.

It hangs in the air,

like the thick smoke

from a hundred wildfires.

We just keep on pretending,

until we choke on it.

Tough to imagine

a worse fire season.

“It’s Climate Change!”

the experts say.

But we know

the forest has to burn

every hundred years,

and the authorities will find

that most of these fires

are caused by arson.

Yeah,

we do it to ourselves.

There’s no denying that fact.

No turning away

from fear,

and hatred,

and the unknown.

No one told me

that the stairway to Heaven

was a ladder,

and the rungs

get really far apart

as you get higher,

and the base is on fire,

so there’s no turning back.

Every move upward

is a leap of Faith.

I’m awake, now.

The smoke

is still thick in the air.

But I’m aware

of what we’re missing,

and that’s still better

than yesterday.

.

.

HG – 2019