Bush Fire

Below firetower heights,

smoke explodes

in multiple shapes of claws.

I watch fires cross borders,

eye water bombers circling black

oil fires as quiet vultures.

I see helicopters with fighters;

a red chemical falls, blood

rains on flaming ground.

Nothing stops choking breath,

the burning of bush. Heroic smoke

screen creeps from city to forests,

invades papers, erases footnotes.

I want to breathe again.

I want us to conspire.

Pitch of wounded white pines

ignites a backfire, sparks an army--

river on left flank,

bare soil on right,

winged creatures with

furious winds in front.

I see fiery sap of pines alight

a biocommunity under dark night.

Raucous firewalls push hissing bush

back to an axis of white stones.

Through my tower lenses,

the backfire burns everything

cleanses down to the ground--

till workers build new frames

and forest litters breed:

roots, bacteria, seedlings,

resurrected doves.