By Dawn M. Sanders
August is upon us; the last leg of summer and I just want it to rain. The grass is turning yellow, the earth is parched and every time I use water for anything, I’m conscientious and aware, but most people just aren’t. Most won’t think about it ‘til it’s too late, until the rivers run dry, and one can see the basin of reservoirs.
As I’m sitting here on the suspension bridge that runs from the pavement to my front door, three low-flying planes have come through within the last hour – ripping through the atmosphere, probably not quite within the stratosphere. They all came from the same direction, but the first one went straight across and not quite over where I’m sitting, while the other two turned off somewhere else.
My sweet cat Phoenix frolics all day – jumping off things, climbing trees and indulging in life or the fields behind the flats where horses sometimes roam. I often think how it would feel, what it would be like to dwell within the animal kingdom or queendom. No bills to pay, no worries of the cost of food, and my cat’s only responsibility is to neatly cover up his waste or keep his fur soft and clean.
I think of how far I am from my only son, as the world unravels – I’m scared, I’m scared for the both of us. As a gentle breeze whispers the mysteries of the past, I sit in the present – bracing for the future.
My neighbours walk to and fro, in and out of their homes and someone runs an electric drill.
There was a strange kind of lull, where the birds stopped twittering or flocking overhead in effortless flight – surely the human-made air traffic must frighten them away.
Hundreds of miles away, men and women in expensive clothes are sitting in an old chamber, built hundreds of years ago. There is no dilemma of the low-flying planes scattering the birds and all the talk, all the rhetoric about the baking planet is just superficial posturing, as oil pipelines run across sacred lands, like IV drips to a dying patient.
In the chamber right now, they are deciding our fate, our rights or the next leader to take us to the precipice of hell, of a night where no one or nothing will return. A seagull just squawked as it glided through the air – without a care in the world for now, for today but not forever.
© 2022