This is the view from where I sit in the mornings, meditating, writing, watching squirrels scamper in the trees, the river flow past.

The view is cloudy these days. Smoke-filled molecules saturate the sky with ash and toxins.

Yesterday, I uncovered the furniture on the deck. No rain is forecast.

The air is too smoky to sit outside. I covered the furniture up again this morning. I don’t want to collect toxin-laden molecules in its cushions.

There is no reprieve in sight. Wildfires continue to burn. To the south. The north. West and east.

I fear Mother Nature’s desperate pleas for help remain unheeded.

My days remain unchanged. I write and paint and walk with Beau along the river. I spend time with my beloved. We see friends a bit more now. I hugged my daughter yesterday. We don’t have to wear masks everywhere anymore. I still carry mine in my purse and car. In jacket pockets. I want to be safe and be a safe person to be around.

It is summer in the city. A different summer every year. Of note, each year feels marked by more and more days of smoke-laden air and time spent indoors with windows and doors tightly closed.

And I am reminded again. We must each do our best to pull ourselves back from the abyss of environmental disaster.

Yesterday, I read up on incandescent versus fluorescent and LED lightbulbs. I spent the afternoon ensuring there are no incandescent anywhere lightbulbs in our home.

A friend mentioned using only bar soaps – from laundry to dishes to hands to hair – she has dispensed with all plastic containers in her home.

There’s always something more I can do to make a difference.

I must keep reading up on possibilities.

Yesterday, I also read about why the sun glows red in smoke-filled skies – red rays are longer and stronger than blue rays, thus, are more adept at travelling further through the smoke-filled sky.

It was that thought which inspired the poem below. That, and the weekly prompt from Eugi’s Causerie.

Eugi's Causerie Prompt 

Your Weekly Prompt –Petals – July 29, 2021

“The soul has words as petals” – Edmond Jabes

Go where the prompt leads you and publish a post on your own blog that responds to the prompt.

It can be any variation of the prompt and/or image. 

Please keep it family friendly. This needs to be a safe and fun space for all.

Again, as always seems to happen, I had no idea where the prompt would take me until I was done.

There is a melancholy in my writing this morning. A yearning for clear blue sky and fresh air. I want to be more upbeat, promising, hopeful. I struggle.

I am hopeful. I’m also leery. Can we? Will we do what must be done to step back from the edge?

Can we? Will we? Change.

Sky Coughs. Ash Falls.
by Louise Gallagher

Heat rises
day breaks
through night
sunrise bruises the horizon
in rose petal colours
of crimson, gold and purple
blue light fades
like a memory
vanishing
into long ago days
spent languishing under a summer sky
unblemished
by smoky clouds
drifting languorously
away 
from earth’s forests
burning
red
hot.

In the distance 
an engine backfires
a car travels west to east
over the bridge
towards city centre
carrying its lone occupant
to a job
buried deep
within a towering building
reaching 
greedily
for the sky.

Above,
sky coughs
ash falls
like a symphony of petals
tumbling
silently
to the ground
covering the earth
in summer's finest snow.