The bush is thirsty,

dry and denuded,

wasting with

faded green,

etched with

dusty brown,

and shaped

in troubled form

in a crucible

by the cruel summer sun.

 

Doom appears on the horizon

with its indelible

face of smoke

from a pulsating glow

whose life blood

is the insistent wind

that drives its

furious black glory.

 

It spreads

with inevitable force

across

the waiting land

without regard for

tree or bird

or human.

It has no feelings

but hunger for

the delicate taste

of crackling bush.

 

The roaring flame of Hades

devours it prey

with hellish glee,

jumping

unrepentant

from tree top

to tree top

with its thunderous

manic laugh.

 

In its wake

lies the wasteland:

black with soot

from hell itself.

Trees stand in

artistic black pose,

protruding,

stark

and smoking in the still heavy air.

 

Silence attends

this ghastly scene

of charcoal death

and bodies

united

in the heat-swept

troubled landscape.

 

A torrent of wind

picks up the ash

and lifts it to the fuming sky:

up, up

towards the heavens,

up up,

with the clouds,

and then down

with the fresh drops

of precious rain

in a new day.

 

2-8-2014