It’s Hard to Rest Easy

We wake to news
of evacuation alerts and orders
and reports of what hungry fires consumed while we rested.

It’s hard to rest easy.

With daylight comes updated reports
of the monsters
consuming our forests and communities.

We don’t want to look, but we have too.

We’re glad for wind that cleared smoke from our skies
so we can go outside
and do summer.

But not too glad.

Because we know the wind is partly to blame
for new alerts and orders.
Destruction.
Lives altered.

To celebrate clearer skies seems selfish.

Our hearts ache
for those who have lost,
for those who don’t yet know what they’ve lost,
and for those on edge, with go bags ready.

We check district and city websites
that are slow,
stretched to their limit.
And the news,
though we’ve grown disenchanted by the news.

And it’s hard to rest easy.