Imagining A Blue Sky
written by: Krysia Pytlik Oxmind
Imagine the taste of an orange sky
full of ashes,
burnt trees, charred feathers, scorched fur.
Imagine, blinds drawn,
an amber glow coloring
the white comforter thrown on the day bed.
Imagine escaping on foot,
boots crunching blackened embers,
saving the cat, a wedding photo, passports.
Imagine smoldering cinders quieted,
twisted freeways, melted bridges,
mailboxes grave-markers where homes once stood.
Imagine a morning canopied by
a dark blue, ever-forgiving
Pacific Ocean sky promising rain.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This poem was written in the voice of a writer in Oregon trying to convey life in the fires surrounding her to a friend experiencing a downpour in the aftermath of a hurricane in Louisiana.
I am a seventy-one-year-old woman who resides in an intentional community based on socially and environmentally responsible living on our planet. Originally called “The Farm”, and once a hippie commune, now retirement home for hippies, there is a physical gate which we know does not keep us safe from Covid. It is, however, a place where I can grow organic tomatoes, green beans and, this year, an enormous amount of butternut squash. And, importantly, write. My childhood was spent in a Polish refugee camp in post-WWII England. I now consider it my life purpose to give breath and knowledge of what the stamp of being a refugee does to any human being. There are many refugees today and there will be many more due to the environmental crisis and the demise of democracy occurring in the world today. I am currently writing a memoir of my passage from a refugee camp to a hippie life in the sixties in San Francisco, then onto forming what was the largest commune in the United States in the seventies – and onto what is now a haven for young and old who want to “save the world”. After all, what else is there to do?
Latest posts by Krysia Pytlik Oxmind (see all)
- Honoring My Ancestors - November 26, 2020
- Imagining A Blue Sky - October 8, 2020
