What it was like

What it was like
to be here at the
end, sun rising
red in the smoke

of another wildfire,
this burning world:
the destruction
of innocents,

the ascendance of
demagogues, the rapacious
appetites of the worst
among us.

What it was like to
speak to a vanishing
posterity, disembodied
generations blind

to Nature,  deaf to the
real world, acolytes of
virtual villages with
a surplus of idiots.

What it was like
to care for what
was going,  gone,
to perpetually sit

shiva, to know our
dwindling lives would not
outlast this despair.
It was brushing

the old cat,
feeding the hens.
It was planting the raised bed,
smelling the last lilacs.

It was morning dark coffee,
leavened with cream,
the bittersweet effervesence
of afternoon beer,

the devoted daily
discharge of remaining
responsibilities to what
we love,  the keeping

of promises, still, and
again training the weary
eye on what beauty
endures, every conscious

hour a life preserver —
the solace of animals,
the fragrance
of blossoms —

tossed to the ruined
and reverent self.

Tags: animals, blossoms, creative writing, deer, despair, destruction, extinction, global warming, nature, plants, poem, poetry, politics, spirituality