Is this our future now? Will we contend
with summer fires till all fuel has burned?
Will conflagration make our weather bend,
or weather rend our fortunes overturned?
In San Francisco, Berkeley, San Rafael,
in Oakland, Portland, Talent, air is hell.
The visuals are noxiously obscured –
each day’s a greater ill to be endured.

Although we understand it could be worse
(the earth might quake, a fresh calamity
could visit here, and wrest new ransom), we
are wearing thin without parole. The curse
of poisoned air removes all remedy –
shut in where even breath cannot be free.

(Pushkin Sonnet)