WARNING

by Jacob Richards

Dangerous air today
they say,
as if i could hold my breath
or turn back the industrial revolution.

Dangerous air today.
Forests burn all around us
old growth turned sunlight 
into sugars
a strange alchemy
now turning sugars into 
a carbon haze
and air quality alerts.

Dangerous air today.
An “I-told-you-so moment”
if only I could catch my breath.
Ed Abbey laughing–
he tried to warn us–
that we were falling and not flying.

Our fears lulled by PR firms 
and impossibly cheap plastic baubles.
“Please put your seat and tray into the full and upright positions.” 
Falling not flying.
Dangerous air today.
Red flag warning,
no burns,
red-eyes
impossible heat.

Dangerous air today. 
Can’t see the mountains–
might as well live in Kansas–
a long nothing.
Without mountains
how can one tell which way is north?
The cardinal directions
are all mashed potatoes–
featureless like a cartoon heaven–
a special kind of hell.

Dangerous air today.
People breath it in
and hate–
as if
that will clear the skies.

Jacob Richards is a writer, editor, activist, and wilderness guide in Western Colorado.

I HEAR YA, ED ABBEY

by David Feela

For Edward Abbey, January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989

Blowing out of the southwest,
the wind this evening gusts,
slaps against the house like
a rafter’s oar skimming
instead of digging deep.

I am sitting in my chair,
re-reading Desert Solitaire
while miles from here the wind
whips the Colorado into a froth
of roiling red mud mixed with thought.

A river’s sediment crossbred
with its sentiment, as if an artery
hemorrhaged in the West
and a tourniquet of common sense
could not contain it.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays How Delicate These Arches released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.