Fire season

Dim, bleary orange smudge, not even round
just hints the sun's position in the sky.
In parody of snow; hot ash drifts down;
from day to day, we live by AQI.
No glint of older starlight's getting through;
this pressure cooker's lid's been torqued down tight.
The mind denies that skies had once been blue,
when all the palette's sepia, and white.
The atmosphere of Mordor sears and chokes,
as if Orodruin were belching forth
particulates and noxious plumes of smoke,
this time not from the East, but from the North.
Four seasons filled the sum of my desire;
this fifth's a crock of ashes, smoke, and fire.