The Notre Dame Is Burning

They say the Notre Dame is burning.
They say the flames licked the heavens
as if to spite the very god they were built to worship.
I imagine Michael Brown’s cheek felt the same heat
as the asphalt scarred his cheek as he laid shot in the street.
Hellfire doesn’t have sh*t on a hot Ferguson summer.
The police left him to rot,
and the vultures found him
before his family was able to identify the body.
They say the Notre Dame is burning.
They say that years of historic architecture
returned to the ash from which it was forged.
Society faces the same retreat.
Morality in retrograde.
Everyday I fear we creep closer to 1950.
They say the Notre Dame is burning.
Well so are the hills in California.
Each year the temperature rises and rises
and so does the coastal water levels.
I wonder how long it will the first man to realize
that we cannot breathe underwater.
Tidal waves will not spare Mar-a-lago
simply because it is encased in a bubble of ignorance.
They say the Notre Dame is burning.
Forgive me if I do not run to fetch a pail of water for the old church.
Forgive me if I do not fall on my knees and weep at the fallen structure.
For far more important things are sending smoke signals.