Water, the savior

The walk is warm.

Crunching sandy rocks with sandals too brown

I can smell the cool river and it's musty plants

As the fire on the mountain looms heavy over town.

The bugs feast on my work stained skin.

Snakes lay on the boulders with checkered display

Smoke hangs in the air with muffled laughter

As I head down the bank to the river to runaway

From the heat of a desert summer.

A summer ablaze with human malice on its grin

The mountain ablaze reminds me to weep

I strip the cloth to baptize my scorched, vineyard skin.

The minnows swim away

My nakedness in a river that runs wild

Ever flowing water, endless it can seem

Swimming during an apocalypse like an ignorant child.

Yet the river will bend

Out of sight, South to the ocean to mix and swirl

Washing our ash from vineyards alight

Carrying our hopes of change to a future girl

My back float is heaven

Gliding down the river, in my watery rescue

Nature destroys itself yet we watch and wait

Let the fires burn out so we can start our industry anew

The birds are unaffected

And the dogs on the left bank bark my name

The trees still sway and sing through their leaves

Our desert marches on dissociative from the flame

Wine country, they say

Yet to me it seems like it's all a dream

The river unchanging on my daily swim

Brings comfort to those willing to redeem

I hope the water will always flow

We are born though it and through it we retire

A naked swim in a wildfire

A naked swim in a wildfire.