I sit with my coffee in the morning
along the Skaha Lake shore;
through haze of smoke
are the mountains silhouetted.
There are a few on the beach,
a few more strolling the promenade,
but the tourists have mostly fled
what some now call the Smokanagan Valley.
At times, this place is quiet,
for the lapping of waves up onto the sand,
but now there is the sound of the aerial firefighters
flying their planes and helicopters,
working to save people and property from wildfires
that have become all too common these past years.
Still, the ring-billed gulls, the mallards,
the Brewer’s blackbirds, and the little ones,
the bees and other insects, seem to take it all in stride,
carrying on with their daily tasks through the smoky haze,
I as their witness.
