Earth's Swansong

On the morning of September 9, 2020, the San Francisco Bay Area woke to an apocalyptic orange sky. Smoke from the North Complex Fire and more than twenty other wildfires, burning across over two million acres, blanketed the region — scattering blue light and letting only warm, amber tones reach the ground. The smoke was thick enough to block the sun outright, turning day into a prolonged, eerie dusk; streetlights stayed lit into midday, as seen in this photograph taken near Upland and Westgate that morning. It struck at a uniquely fraught point in a fraught year, six months into the COVID‑19 pandemic, making the sky feel like a physical manifestation of a year already defined by crisis. This poem was written in response to that morning — using the surreal, hellish beauty of the sky as a lens on climate neglect, collective helplessness, and the strange resilience the moment demanded.

Oh, what hue in the sky one has ever seen.
Nuclear winter, painter’s palette, or perhaps a poet’s dream.
Could this picturesque sight resemble the heaven that we all imagine?
Or is this a crowning of hell amidst the 2020 din?

A fire rages, a pandemic spreads, leaving us all incapacitated on our own planet.
Years of neglect to climate change and dissipated living is now making us fret.
If we could turn back the clock, could we have done more to reduce carbon emissions and got more trees planted?
Perhaps even cared, loved, and given time to the environment that we took for granted!

For earth did not bargain for this catastrophe caused by man.
The sun hidden, the clouds covered by a fireball sky on a sunny day in LA land.
Cry, scream, laugh, or even dance at this sight viewed outside your window pane.
Then say a prayer — for who knows, maybe the end is nigh — but in aspiration and hopefulness one must remain!

Earth’s Swansong