Prelude to Disaster  

SoCal Beauty: Prelude to Disaster

Reservoir water levels down

Drought conditions apply

Southern California water rationing enforced.

October promised a bit of rain

But no

Not till mid-November

Then…

Rain!

Seven months without

Within days of the season’s first rain

Brown, burnt-out shrubs and wild grass

Magically

Once again turn green and the seasonal

Process begins anew.

Rain…

and more rain.

The worse the weather

The better the weather…

To a point.

Overflowing water flooding denuded

Previous burn areas as rivers of sludge

Inundate mountainside and wooded

Localities destroying home after home.

Walls of mud closing canyon roads,

As loosened earth allows bounding

Boulders onto Pacific Coast Highway.

                               Verse Two

           December, January and February

Breathtakingly beautiful in their distance:

Snowcapped mountains peak into and disappear

Within pure white clouds back-dropped by

Startling blue skies.

California poppies abundant,

Hills and prairies dotted with red, pink and blue flowers.

Daily sunshine along with intermittent rain resurrecting

Dry prairie grass and sun-browned shrubs effectuating

Mile upon mile of flower dotted green umbrage.

Occasionally seen on the velvety green hillside

Herds of grazing cattle, horses or sheep.

Lake Tahoe to the north

Yosemite Park mid-state 

Big Bear to the south

Whereupon lowering snow lines

Opening mountain resorts

To a constant stream of vehicles 

Bearing skies and snowboards.

                                         Verse Three

                                     March and April 

From the high Sierras flow fifteen to twenty

Feet of melting snow runoff filling reservoirs

Allowing sluice gates to open permitting

Capricious amounts of water to flow

Imperceptibly downhill from north to south

Within the hundreds of miles of California’s

Snaking, southbound aqueduct system.

Wild growth upon mountains, hills and prairies

Now distantly showing as mottled green foliage.

                                        Verse Four

                                   California beauty,

                                  Prelude to disaster

Last notable rain in early March.

Reservoir water levels down,

Forthcoming drought conditions apparent

Southern California rationing suggested.

Moisture now a nonexistent memory as draught stricken

Sun-browned scrub grass and dead shrubs cover mountains

Hillsides and prairies.                              

                                                  May 2, 2013

Ignited by:

On this day ignited by a carelessly dropped cigarette

In wild abundance

Sun-browned scrub grass and dead shrubs

Ignite…

and quickly,

Running with the wind

Within seconds:

Running with the wind

Trees igniting explosively

Highly combustible scrub grass and dead shrubs

Become a conflagration consuming all within its path

Homes evacuated in the hundreds

People evacuated in the thousands

Firefighters drawing a line in the burning brush

Homes, though

Homes catching now

Homes in smoke as

Ten, twenty, thirty miles distant

Appearing as a wide red glow on the far distant horizon

Day becomes night.

                          As a hurricane of fire…

Running with the wind,

Out of the hillside

Ripping through evacuated residential neighborhoods

Tall palm trees igniting as Roman Candles on the Fourth of July

Homes burnt to the ground, naught but standing chimneys remain

Ten, Twenty, thirty miles distant

Night becoming day,

Black smoke appears as storm clouds on the far distant horizon as

Carried in the air, specks of gray ash fall upon all within the wind’s path.

                                               Verse Six

                     December, January and February

California poppies abundant

Hills and prairies dotted with red, pink and blue flowers

Daily sunshine along with intermittent rain resurrecting

Dry prairie grass and sun-browned shrubs effectuating

Mile upon mile of flower dotted green umbrage.

                              California beauty 

                              Prelude to disaster

 ©May 2, 2013 / Mark M. Lichterman