All this I made before string
Theory. Before the fire
crews scratched the forest
duff away to reveal
fissures that let the earth
breathe incandescent ice
from the moon’s dark side
with its rind of echoed light
where now I live.
The sacred secret of making fire
I turned from ritual
into religion unnatural.
Imagine my cancered delight
when through trembling aether I sensed
the ash white fire-boss
dare give permission
to ignite the conflagrant flares
unaware of coming wind.
The inevitable explosive
effect of two fires
one to ravage
one to block.
Each with mass critical
enough to suck all oxygen
from each molecule
of super heated air
the way two lovers
share in the redolent dark
a breath kiss
two mouths
two tongues
the suicide of love
and the sudden perfume
from the pair
from every pore
ecstatic in flame.
And after everything
was ash I walked
through skeletal pagodas
temples of scorched fir and pine
even once water laden
aspen now dried.The earth’s breath
mingling with my own
like wind between atoms.
Heat shattered boulders
in the mouth of charred kivas
blackened Anasazi shards
flame fractured stars
and all those nascent souls
unbound unstrung unfettered.
50 square miles of torched
fawns seared elk calves
singed bear cubs
kindled fledglings
flammulant owls
ravens fringed with flame
severed from air
unfeathered and lost forever to sky.
Animal and bird numbers
greater even than my own count
when I loosened fire
like rain-child of Kali and Shiva.
A million and one radiant
bodies with skins burned
to negative images
of every garment they wore
wearing now only light
as do I
clothed in feathers
and fur of the dead
my parched mouth choked
with their unwatered breath