Monday, June 21, 2021

FIRE THE NEXT TIME

by George Salamon


“Severe heat and drought the hallmarks of a changing west… Unless people drastically reduce planet-warming emissions, the world faces a future of increasingly frequent and severe environmental disasters: coastal flooding, mass extinctions, deadly hurricanes, uncontrollable wildfires.” —The Washington Post, June 20, 2021. Photo: Boats sit unused in Lake Oroville, Calif., on Tuesday. A severe water level drop in the lake has forced about 130 houseboats to be removed. (Melina Mara / The Washington Post)


The worship of money
and machines made us
vile and ugly, nobility
and beauty live in
inanimate things, in
flowing waters and in
moving clouds, in
animals of the wild
green and blue depth,
we sold our souls to
delusions that kept the
people marching down
to nothing at the end of
their dream.
A poet wrote that he'd
the future." The future
has arrived, and we'll 
burn in its fire.


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, MO.