Poem for today by Anthony Josolyne

Arts Richmond

Online - 09 May 2020

A Climate Crisis

The bushfires that started in the Adelaide hills of Australia 2019

The towns fill up with eager tourist crowds,

The darker season drawing to a close;

More sunlight filters through the drifting clouds

Brightening homes and landscape as it grows.

The plant-life blessed by rainfall year by year

Is parched and dry, since drought has followed drought;

Once-welcome sunshine now is met with fear:

Safety and future livelihood in doubt.

Warning signs are posted all around

Some dangers may be lurking in the grass:

Discarded items, thrown upon the ground,

Mirrored lenses, from broken shards of glass.

The sun grows more intense, a deadly ray:

As heat builds up beyond the comfort zone

More grassland dries and moisture steams away:

Draining scrub and bush, vital life-blood gone.

Unstoppable, the desiccation spreads,

A tinder-box just waiting to catch fire:

And now the outcome everybody dreads:

One tiny spark into a ‘funeral pyre.’

The bushfires spread to many miles around

Wildlife and humans: all are under threat:

Possessions and homes burning to the ground…

…No place to go for family or pet.

Advance evacuation’s put in place

But some reluctant residents sit tight

(Ignoring all the dangers that they face)

They stay behind, regardless of their plight.

Evil smoke is drifting everywhere;

The use of special face-masks on the rise…

…There’s nothing left to breathe, but smog-filled air

From toxic fumes now carried by the skies.

Flames (fanned by gales at eighty miles per hour)

Create two hundred blazing fires… …and more,

Intensity withstands all rain and shower:

Wildlife driven out, frightened, burnt and raw.

The fire-fighters are local volunteers,

Bravely working, to staunch the burning spread;

The aftermath will last for many years,

As lives re-build, while grieving for the dead.

© Tony Josolyne, 02/02/2020

Tony, a retired College Lecturer (Electronics & Computers) has written sporadically from the age of 10. He is a member of the Merton Poets and Whatley Writers.