As my heart breaks, I send love and best wishes to friends and family in affected areas and a work in progress from my forthcoming collection. Not much solace sorry, just truth telling.

ARSONISTS AT HEART

Supercharged ambiguity, uncertainty
in overdrive, the opacity of an interminable
summer of corrosive fumes obscures
culpability as we mince toward oblivion.

Hurly Burly Commerce Fair
and haggling traditions continue,
the haze’s origin indistinct from cause,
human error upon human error,

extinguishing efforts wasted
on an alleged civilization
barrelling toward its expiration date,
beyond band aids of sea walls,

green treaties and carbon taxes,
our boreal forest so vast
we burn instead of cut.
Arsonists at heart,

we rely upon smoke screens
to keep the status quo
propped up against
the altar of human industry.