Wildflowers
Here are our flowers of fire.
Tonight, Beatty burns.
And Sierra Nevada
and Santa Fe
and the Gulf of Mexico which we sit on.
Plumes play in Plumas, named after childhood
friends, Richard, Dixie, Kennedy, Eugene, Rafael
— Here are our flowers
of fire for the earth.
If we cannot stay long,
at least let it be bright. At least
have this part of us, if not our
beauty: Chaos.
And so we go:
Tonight, Antalya.
And Mersin
and Adana
and Marmaris. Tonight Turkey.
Tomorrow perhaps Plymouth; Springfield;
Paterson. Perhaps Pakistan.
I’d like to imagine a life
for my brother’s great grand children
but beaches are going under
(beaches are burning);
human beings huddled
at the center of landmasses
which become driftwood
we dig our nails into
and our palms are wet. Maybe
all brother and I will do is
imagine. Where are the priests
in this arsonist’s apocalypse?
What of doomsday preppers?
Jars of jam and chili peppers,
hidden bars of gold —
are they at least cold
when the smoke creeps in
under doors and through sweatshirt fabric
when eyes water
when water spoils and rises
and spills, through floorboards. Into the ark
which we put so much
(so much hope) into.
/ The sky may be dark
and blossoms may fall to earth,
leaving little flames that lick up everything.
Should we water them now?
Should holy water help?
This summer, wildfires continued to ravage the North American continent. Since late July, Turkey and Greece have also had severe fire disasters that have left towns destroyed and multiple dead. Wildfires are perhaps the most blatant and horrific display of the climate emergency.
There were a number of metaphors I could have chosen for these fires, but flowers seemed apt because they did not remove the human responsibility in the tragedy. They are the footprints that civility leaves behind for other life forms. I did not wish to personify the fires or characterize us as victims of evil, unstoppable forces of nature.
All the names used in the poem (even Chaos) are real fires currently burning at the time of writing — there are about 830 of them. As long as corporations are allowed by legislators to prioritize profit over the health and habitability of our planet, natural disasters and harmful weather will only grow more severe. When will enough be enough?
