Summer Has Changed

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When I was a child
summer was an endless stream
of sunny days. But then,
rain would come.
We might get a sun shower,
but more often a storm rolled in
and then rolled away,
or soft rain hung on for days.
Then, the endless sun
and the big puffy clouds returned.
We never thought about smoke.
It’s hard to play outside
or work in the garden
as ash falls onto the chard.
Gardening is usually
an encounter with the fresh air.
But not when it smells like a campfire.
The smell comes in slow,
quietly easing its way in.
You hardly notice it
until it becomes the only thing you notice.
You plan around the coming smoke.
So here we are, living in a world
where summer is different.
The rhythm defined by winds
blowing smoke, this way or that,
our lives following the breeze.
Everyone looks for answers.
Some just want to blame,
even as neighbors cry for help—
neighbors who helped us before.
Canadians turn from our sad answer
while we just complain about the smoke.
It’s a new kind of life we have here,
watching and planning on the wind,
on the smoke, on whether we can breathe.
It’s inconvenient, to be sure,
but maybe not so bad as those
whose homes and livelihoods are turned to ash.
Things can burn unexpectedly in summer.
We know it is possible.
We know that we, too, could burn.
Maybe we are just thankful;
all we have to worry about is smoke.
Anthony Signorelli