CRUEL SEASON
Cruel Season: Artists Reflecting on Drought and Fire
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"The drought is here, the fires may come. These works of art and poems present them both as reminders of where we live and what we face."
"Our best defense against these natural disasters is wise use of water. Simply put, we must conserve all the water we can— for everyday use, for sustainable agriculture, for municipal waste systems; and for fire fighting, for resupplying ground waters, for healthy rivers and streams—though we can’t water the hillsides."
"It’s no secret: the global climate itself is changing—it’s getting hotter everywhere. Our burning of fossil fuels is a likely cause—droughts, hotter temperatures, excessive rains, more violent storms."
"Drought effects are well known: dried up plant life, animals without plant or animal food, sun-blocking dust on plants that further diminishes them near and far, and, when rains come to our hills, erosion and debris flows. Then of course, the fires."
Fire Bug Fire Bug
by Robert Chianese
Fire Bug Fire Bug
Slink away home
Our woods are set afire
Its children are gone.
Lizard and fox
And bat in her cave
Scurry to hide from
Your ire and your rage.
Fire Bug Fire Bug
Give us a break
Our hills are the cradles
For coyotes and snake.
Your sad little spark
Ignites into flame
Till all we have left
are sorrow and blame.
The hills are alive
With a groan and a squeal.
Your cruel work completed
Takes ages to heal.
May 2014 was the hottest month ever recorded and now this June too (ncdc.noaa.gov). Southern California summers have heated up 1.32 F degrees per decade just since 1970 (weather.com). This evidences local weather change.
Our foothills are under the stress of droughts—a long-term regular one and a short-term severe one afflicting a whole swatch of the western US. A rainy season this winter now seems unlikely, so they may remain un-replenished for a fourth year. They would need years of normal rain to catch up.
Friendly Fires
by Robert Chianese
I
Neighbor, Incendarist, Manic Boy:
fire’s only “friendly” when botched—
the bomb lobbed too close,
off target, an accident.
So why set the hills ablaze?
Did she insult you? he slight you?
ruffle your tender self?
Does it awaken the sleepy town for you,
cause something to happen, at least?
turn you on, stroke you,
those rolling flames,
Release at last?
Or, do you get to pose a heralded hero,
sounding the alarm?
II
There are heroes.
Unheralded, they line the hills with trucks,
bumper to bumper,
tanks, pumps, hoses swell with
precious water,
the wet bulwark,
the liquid sword to lance boiling flames.
The battle’s waged with boots,
ground taken and lost,
trench warfare, air support,
platoons moving out into the fire zone,
yellow with gear, helmets and hoods,
that breathing device,
and fire-dripping torch
pouring flame to starve the fury back.
III
After the conflagration
something’s won,
but way overdue, too violent—a cleansing.
Mistaken notions of quick suppression
let nothing burn anywhere.
The hills want natural fires,
without urging or discouraging from us—
small earth-bound blazes
that sweep the undergrowth,
friendly to the hills,
patchworking them
with splotches of cleared ground
opened for fresh growth.
We can manage such flames,
herd them from our homes,
where lurk the cruelest friends,
whose fires send up their emptiness
in pillars of smoke.