Dog's Breath

The panting dogs of summer off their leash
and roam the Earth from middle spring to autumn.
Parched tree coronas painting a pastiche
of hungry flames. Leaves falling to the bottom,
then offer kindling to the raging fire,
the forests merely husks of former glory,
a fire that consumes the world, entire,
an ashen end to mankind's sorry story.

As Sirius retires to his kennel
and licks his scarred and bloodied, mangy paws,
does he imagine Earth when it was gentle
the planet as it could be, never was?

Anthropocene, as we now rate an epoch.
Anticipate our failure to be epic.