A "Blip" is in Retrospect

"I have seen the long-term trend, and the current warming is a small blip on the historical scale..."
- An argument presented by climate change denial apologists

He walked the woodland road
Along the path that took the shoulder
Shoulder to shoulder
With the forest
And the corrugated gravel
Physical onomatopoeia
To the gravel
Of his voice
"Too many of these shit sticks!"
He growled through the smoke-filled cumulonimbus
Roiling with a minor thunder
From his lungs
And flicked the barely smouldering
Short end tailings
With the conviction that
Only his suckling drags
Had maintained its ember.

As it hit the track taken
Unconscious dogma
That life support
Was now immutably denied
Doused contemplation of
An enduring multiverse

Three things
Does a fire need to burn:

• Fuel
  The underbrush and dried grass edging the path gently stroked by

• Oxygen
  The susurrating breeze, rejuvinating

• Heat
  The embers' waning "étincelle de vie"

When he reached his destination
He looked back
And saw
A maelstrom firestorm
Raised up

And all around
Was razed and erased
To ash