Thursday, August 10, 2023

A Room of My Own: Wind-Whipped Wildfires Haiku

No More Fairy Tales, XVI

wind-whipped wildfires
wave after wave of people fleeting 
into the ocean


FYI: NBC News, August 10: Maui fires live updates: At least 36 dead as thousands flee 'unprecedented' disaster: Crews continue to battle Maui and the Big Island fires, which have been fanned in part by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, a Category 4 storm.

And Democracy Now, August 11: Fire Expert Says Climate & Native Vegetation Changes Fueled Explosive Maui Wildfires

“This is something that is absolutely unprecedented,” says Clay Trauernicht, a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where he focuses on wildland fire management in Hawaii and the Pacific. He explains how colonial landscape changes to the islands — prioritizing monocrop agriculture and land use for tourism — paired with the worsening atmospheric effects of climate change have set the conditions that sparked the devastating wildfires and allowed them to rage indiscriminately.


This haiku is a sequel to the following one:

No More Fairy Tales, XV

wave after wave of heat
please press ?
for more Q&As


And This haiku is a sequel to the following one:

No More Fairy Tales, VI
for Greta Thunberg

tongues of forest fires 
there's no Plan[et] B, the rest
blah, blah, blah ...



Added: No More Fairy Tales, XVII

Day and Night Quest

he runs with dogs
in his shorts and flip-flops ...
cloud after cloud
of smoke and ashes billowing 
over once-white-sand beaches

fleeing with dogs
through blaze after blaze
in gathering dark
he climbs up to the clifftop
while leaving his future behind 


Added: No More Fairy Tales, XVIII

HR in red
scrawled on a half-burnt door ...
the barks 
of cadaver dogs
echo in smoky twilight


FYI: HR stands for human remains. And Associated Press, August 13: As the death toll from a wildfire that razed a historic Maui town climbed to 93, authorities warned that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. The blaze is already the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.


AddedRe-Homing in the Maple Land, VI

with his beagle
an air-guitar busker 
singing out loud
shoulda, coulda, woulda
story of my vagrant life


AddedRe-Homing in the Maple Land, VII

Billionaire Bunker
a man-made barrier island
in the Sunshine State ...
bathed in sweat, I ask my bunk-bed mate 
to turn off the TV and sleep

FYI: Fox Business, August 12: Jeff Bezos buys $68 million mansion in Miami's exclusive "Billionaire Bunker:"Jeff Bezos and fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, are expected to bulldoze the site and build a new mega mansion.

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