I Burn
1. I am the fire of climate change
Raising sea temperatures so
Disease riddled fish gasping for oxygen
Die and float to the surface.
My warm-water bacteria plague the coral reefs
Blotching them white and wounded.
Polar bears and seals grow hungry, thin, and starve
As I melt and break the pack ice where they hunt.
My high tides of sloshing waves and sand
Will engulf homes on the shores of Florida, Long Island, and Cape Cod
Soon to be ghost towns and forests under water.
My hurricanes leave piles and piles of rubble and broken lives.
I am the fire in fungus-infested skins
Of 200 species of frogs
Gone extinct when their habitat warmed
And unleashed the flourishing deadly fungus.
Lethal pathogens thriving in my warmer climate
Cause the salamanders, bats, snakes, elk and more
To suffer and weaken.
I will be the fire in emaciated, starving mountain pikas
Searching in summer for the grasses they need for sustenance
While I warm the land making it too dry for growth.
I am the fire in baby birds’ gaping beaks
After the insects they need for food
Hatched too early in my warming climate
And are gone, leaving the chicks famished.
I am the fire raging in Rocky Mountain National Park,
Yellowstone, and Sequoia, where our treasured giant redwoods
Now smolder in ruins while
Fire-scorched animals have nowhere to escape the
Walls of flames surrounding them.
I reign in our neighborhoods on fire with entire towns in cinders,
Only our brick fireplaces left standing in the ashes.
Emergency alerts sometimes don’t work.
People run for their lives
When devouring fire reaches their back fences.
2. I am the mirror of the destructor of my natural world.
I burn and rage as my country cancels our human rights.
I am the fire in the flame of our candles held
For George, Breonna, Elijah, and countless others.
I am the fire the 10-year-old feels
In her belly when her state conscripts her
To give birth to the baby
Conceived when she was raped.
I am on fire when mass shootings occur.
Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde,
A mall, a synagogue, a grocery store, a theater.
The AR-15 makes me burn.
But who will be next to die—how many?
I burn when people can’t vote
Because their voices are silenced,
When the committees ban and burn books,
When our teachers can no longer teach the truth,
And our politicians lie.
What will be the next step in the destruction of democracy?
While climate change deniers ignore science,
And second amendment advocates demand AR-15s,
And those who take away women’s rights rule,
Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Will inherit a world we no longer know,
One filled with bullets and smoke.
I burn.