Accelerants - July 19 2025

 

Accelerants

July 19 2025

Arson, they said.

So, did he stand his ground

and watch the forest burn?

Did he slowly back away

entranced by the flames?

Or did he misjudge the wind,

and in ten years

a dog

out for a run

would stumble over his sun-dried bones

scattered teeth

badly scorched ring?

Which are hard to find

where the land had greened

and plants keep reaching higher

competing for light.

I can only wonder why.

Was it a powerless man

asserting power?

Was it the irresistible trance

of uncontained fire?

Or was he a nihilist,

certain

that in the fullness of time

everything burns anyway.

And that, to some degree

we are all accelerants.

No, it must have been lightning, the doubters guessed;

the gods, once again

toying with us mortals

amusing themselves.

Either way, I suppose, he was right,

everything does eventually burn.

But not all at once

and not right now.

Once again, a bad wildfire season: starting earlier, more and larger fires, and more intense ones. Worse year by year, which can't go on, but apparently will.

I can understand the consequences of decades of active fire suppression. I can understand the increasing risk of an expanding human/wild-land interface. I can understand hotboxes on trains and faulty power lines. I can certainly understand lightning and climate change. But arson?!! Apparently so.

What could possibly motivate such an antisocial act? Who would ever do such a stupid thing? Do we need even more evidence of human fecklessness? Isn't climate change denialism enough?!!

Needless to say, I quite enjoyed killing him/her off, while the forest regenerates. And, of course, we are all accelerants, each of us contributing our own small bit to human caused climate change.