Monday, August 8, 2022

Fire Season

In mountain firestorms the lake reflects--
While here, where heat is home, the cool collects
And washes trees down dry ravines where pools
Are parched, where fish reflect and we're made fools
By their philosophy. The heron's throat 
Is thirsting for its fish. The mountain goat
Is singed and sings its mountain-echoed bleat
Lamenting all its dead who weren't as fleet.
The earth is red, the moon is black in soot,
Tornado fires are twisting--underfoot,
The lightning strikes while northern shrikes stab mice
Upon acacia thorns. Their bones are dice
That roll beneath the burned and broken bramble.
Too dry and hot, too cool and wet--we gamble
And leave a shamble, ignorant of all
Our worth, our wealth--and we don't hear the call.
The wolves are silent--monarchs flit and fly,
Pretending that they rule. The fish reply 
With fingerprint-ridged scales that prism-days
Are when the heron hunts. Blue breaks the waves. 

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