by Pepper Trail
This is the way now, the night helicopters orange-bellied from the flames, swallowing mouthfuls of ocean, dropping salt on the mansions, bungalows, trailers, the streets running wild with molten metal, airburst of exploding eucalyptus, every TV speaking wisely, hysterically of ember fall, windspeed, perimeters, acres, percents, containment, containment, containment, canyons, freeways, the survivors somehow calm, brave beside the ruins, char and ash, the scorched tricycle on its side, the bewildered chimneys of the cul-de-sacs, hell on earth you could say and not be wrong, the City of Angels twisting in the grasp of Santa Ana, beneath the red flags and this is the way now though maybe in your town it will be hurricane or tornado or flood or drought or heat unto death or maybe in some blessed places of sanctuary maybe only a tsunami of the desperate and displaced but this is the everywhere now and we have made it so.
Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.
