Endure Hardness

On the mesa, flowers burn.
Later, pines may burn as well.

Whenever you reach the point
Your country starts to smolder,

The inhuman world seems kind,
At least compared to your kind—

True in every tradition
Known among your languages.

Approaching the verge this time,
However, the non-human

Also feels precarious.
East of here, enormous fires

Have already swept away
Woods, lives, houses, species,

And the war’s only started.
The spring’s still far from summer,

Hardships begun, more to come,
Yet another spreading smudge

Visible from space. Ranch lands
Look like active volcanos

In clips from near-Earth orbit.
Is there much theory, really,

In conspiracy theory?
If so, those are theorists

Snatching children south of here
As border vigilantes,

One conflict candling further,
Between one fire and the next.

When you reach this stage of things,
Conflagration’s rarely far.

On the mesa, flowers burn,
Weird meteors of new wars.