A cigarette butt thrown carelessly
Is carried on the wind
To rest on chaff and debris
At the side of the road as we pass by,
Hair flying,
Car top down,
A radio on.
And as we sing along
At the top of our lungs,
It doesn’t matter if we’re a bit off key.
Sadly,
Long after our tire marks fade,
There rises from that pile of chaff
An SOS,
A thin trail of smoke.
Left unchecked,
That trail becomes a fire,
And long after we retire to bed,
Thankful for a space to rest our head
Comfortably,
Enjoying the benefits of our security,
Somewhere else, someone or something else
Is crying out for help,
Because their sanctuary
Has gone up in flames-
The source of the fire, our cigarette butt,
But we will not be made to claim responsibility.
We may never even know of the fire
Because, far away, the heat and smoke does not disturb our serenity.
We have left in our wake,
A landscape of smoke and ash,
A cemetery of scorched corpses-
Animals too old or too weak to flee
The confusion of flames
That rose from the chaff to race noisily,
Shouting loudly,
Punching red hot fists angrily to the sky,
Belching smoke that choked and brought tears to the eye
Of any passerby who dared pause to lament
Our impact on the environment.
And it would have been a sight to see
Animals racing desperately,
leaping from the fire
Into the claws of predators
Hopping on the edge of the flames
That serve insects up as trinkets
Before lassoing fiery ropes to claim
Those who thought to feast on the misfortune of their prey.
The scent of death chokes,
And so too does smoke
As it wraps cloudy fingers around the throat
Of baby birds who haven’t yet learned to sing,
Whose wings are not yet dry,
Who have never learned how to fly.
Fires snake up the trunks of trees
To creep into their nests
And feast on their weakness
While their parents escape, powerless.
Tucked beneath our blankets far away,
Counting sheep,
We don’t think of fire,
We think only of sleep.
And as it evades us, we climb from our beds,
Wrap ourselves in robes,
Reach for a cigarette and a lighter,
Throw open our doors,
Head out to the verandah,
Throw up our feet on the banister,
Light up, puff, eyes narrowed,
Blow circular rings,
Hold the cigarette between our fingers,
And as we examine the slow burning,
We think about many things,
But we never think that maybe
The cigarette butt we threw at the side of the road
Could have sparked a disaster.
Hi guys,
There's a prompt over in the Blockchain Poets community, inviting writers to submit poems about the environment. Here's the link to the details, please enter if you can.
In the Caribbean, we are faced with a number of environmental issues, including but not limited to sea level rise, the increasing intensity of hurricanes and storms, coral bleaching and threatened ecosystems, rising temperatures, and bush fires.
I usually like to use poems to tell a story, and so, for this piece, because we are currently in the dry season and because we experience a lot of bush fires during the dry season which destroy wildlife and vegetation, I opted to write about the impact of a bushfire caused by human carelessness. I hope you appreciate it, guys. Do have a great day.
