Why am I so tired?
Is this normal
to wake with the fog and still feel scorched,
like a hillside after lightning?

How many times has the world burned?

How many fires does it take
to make us see this could be the last time
if we refuse to do anything different?

The trees can’t take
another summer like this
leaves curling,
crackling like paper in the wind,
or drenched and uprooting in softened soil.

No in-between.
One extreme to the next,
plummets and leaps.

Down in the hollow,
a creek stutters over stones
once slick with moss.
Now just memory and sediment.

The whip-poor-will sings less each year.
Cicadas rise, louder than before
not celebration, but warning.

Even the mountains hold their breath.

Is this how the world ends?
Not with thunder,
but with tired people ignoring
the fire climbing trees behind them.