Mother's Fury

last night I fell asleep
to the bomb blasts
of fireworks
and my neighbors
shouting
'merica! 'merica!

this morning we awoke to
a different type of fireworks
 - the forest kind

the sky looks angry
and the wind whips
with fury

something in me trembles
a taste of what's to come?

this independence day
we realize we are
not so independent
as our green grass
turns brown
a couple of months early
and our water supply dips
to unprecedented lows

my heart cries for mercy as we prepare
for the full wrath of God
when we will all turn in anguish
"mother why have you forsaken us?"
but it is we who abandoned her
in search of our childish dreams of 
a sugar-coated, gun-powder-laced freedom
that will never come

*Original poem by Summer Starr, July 2015