Smoke

This Sunday afternoon I hike to the shade and ferns of Burns Canyon to read amongst the rocks and birds This fall we do not send our kids to school due to the pervasive disease that tests our capacity and preys on the festering rot in our schism We cannot agree whether it is more important to protect each other or feel that we ourselves are free We do not agree on a set of descriptions of the world around us that we mutually conceptualize as reality Our information infrastructure ensures we all have support for the superiority of our worldview Systems have evolved to exploit the mechanisms of our society beginning with the minds money and votes of common folk We cannot agree on who plays the malicious role In this overgrown forest hardwood is intertwined with parasites Clenching vines proclaim their right to suffocate their way toward the light Thick smoke has settled in from northwest Bits of ash fall on these pages The forest offers hope: inferno precedes growth Hiking down the world is faded beige and red as if three hours closer to sunset My eyes burn as I try to see across the canyon NIST campus is barely discerned through the haze yet the red-hot sun feels amplified upon my back It's never this hot in September Smoke has never settled this thick upon our homes When do we start to regrow?