Suffocation

The atmosphere reflecting that of an 
iron foundry, oppressive heat radiating from 
an open-skied sun, relentlessly punishing creatures 
and vegetation alike in its unforgiving excess. 
The wind serves merely to shift the level of 
fieriness from one height of improbable density 
to the next. In the woods a hawk soars above the 
dehydrated trees, foliage wilting in mid-summer 
from green to stressed red and orange. The 
woodland is still with heat-shelter-seeking
animals, exhausted in a primal fiery arras of 
elemental proportions. In the far distance of the 
clear blue sky, faint rumbles tremble the air. 
Soon the ambiance of the sun-struck day dissolves
 to the darkness of night though it is yet not
close to dusk, as pacific blue is replaced by angry 
grey, charcoal thunderheads raging close above. 
So overheated the environment that the heavy 
drops of rain attempting to present as a torrent,
dry as they descend, and though it rains steadily, 
little reaches the forest canopy or its parched floor, 
gasping for relief, suffocating in the Earth's furnace.