Forest Fire, Linville Falls, 2007

How these dark flames lick at the branches of thorn

on the trembling hot eve of summer,

and whittle them to broken gray ash

with sparks showering orange pinpoints in the gloom,

each tree cowered helpless before the conflagration. 

This horizon was a jagged collection of black spikes

halo'd with pulsing columns of fire, 

striking lakes to pools of hell and murk,

instantly fossilizing the quicksilver of life beneath.

There is only open country 

and worried stars beyond this fevered blaze,

and the frame houses where rural faces float worried

at yellow-washed kitchen windows, 

the pair of us looming in the sour air 

at the threshold of a church parking lot

as the mountain crumbles and burns,

a swath of furious red, 

as if an airliner made an unscheduled landing

in the depths of these woods,

and burst into pieces upon arrival.