Fear of Chaparral

It's getting close to fire season here in S.D., and I've just read a hilarious short story by Nicole Panter, "Mr. Right On," that, with a very thin veil, blows the lid off a certain South California lefty social critic. Poetry seems like the only way to put it all together today.

Reading Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear

Got a postmodern fantasy where

American dreams grow up the hills

while puma sifts through

blue oak ashes.

We’re not safe anymore without

infrared detectors; predators

in the parks with screw-

top bottles and fresh

spikes from some needle exchange program

leave their trash in our very last stand

of California

wild lilac. Soft

white, like clouds on bluffs,

they sway to the west

on salt-sweet winds. Smoke

from centuries-old

indigenous fires,

secured in warty

bark and hairy stems,

in soft petals wet

with fog, comes to life

as morning sun warms

ancient chaparral.

Memories of black

ash and green rebirth. But we got it

going on: our Council voted for new

assessment taxes;

more police have been

assigned to the area; and fire

suppression measures have been taken.

The bright olive tides

of hills flowing down

to meet the sea look

like safe havens, yet

beneath green comfort

small beings scurry

in fear. A small pile

of tan feathers, blood

on their quill-tips, point

to a tiny death

under a perfect

sun. The light touches

dappled soils through

the chest-high brush; all

feel the warmth of day,

feel the fog-kissed breath

of night, know that days

mark the passages

to the impending

transference to the ancestor’s world.

For now, you cannot see that motion

sensors hide beneath

waves of golden earth.