A rain forest burns beyond me
under the fading golden blue shine
breezy late summer evening
sun’s set in the Pacific northwest.
The smoke comes, reeking, seeking
wherever we are in the world
come it will, soon and very soon.

Images of fire scroll up
across the pages of the world.
Fire, blazing under the nibs of pens
melting quills, frizzling keys
forming the matrices of creation
as we awaken, singed and scorched
by kindling we used to light the fire.

I feel the flames around me
smell the acrid smoke enfold
hear the cries of people running
birds screeching in panic,
anaconda, anteater, iguana
golden lion tamarin racing
for their lives, living beings
wanting just and only what I want.
None I know, will never see
but must know, see as they are now
fleeing fires razing the green reaches
to the height and breadth of the Amazon –
silent and vast reaches I only knew
from pages of my child’s geography book.

Portland, Oregon – August 2019

As I write, the rain forests of the Amazon are burning out of control with madmen watching unconcerned, complicit, and culpable.  What can poetry do to address this insanity?  Not nothing.

The peoples have left the lighted paths
feel now their way with outstretched hands
along choked and darkened roads
city slithering alleys, ruined country lanes.
Behind them they hear disturbed voices
a babble of whispered tongues speaking
what was, could have been, may be.

The ground become a shaking wilderness
changing, unknown and new, boiling
as darkness eclipses a failing light.
A gloaming gathers in heavy folds
weighing down, turbulent, roiling.

Bleak the countryside, the burning fields
ruined trees of ash and smoke;
the drowned land, the melting ice,
animals set adrift in unknown seas.
Fare-thee-well and so sorry
to have forgotten and lost you.

What has become the solace of green gardens
freshets of bubbling life from cold streams
swirling down from glaciered mountains?
Where the sweet murmur of silent prayer –
faith, hope, love, sacred forgiveness –
becoming light within a child’s dream?

What world will the people choose
having so much lost and still to lose?
And I – what will I choose
within the light of knowledge I possess
of what I’ve done and failed to do?

Portland, Oregon – August 19, 2019