All Fire’s Eve
To Baltimore
30 April 2015
The woody hills are sleeping
The cold, stale sleep of death.
While weeping wind whispers past
Black trunks, exhausted, out of breath.
A deafening silence drowns the air
In nothing, not a flutter.
The sun beats down the charcoal ground
The final drops of strength are mustered.
Creeping limbs claw and stretch
And squinting, step into the sun.
Gray-black snowflakes powder the land
Celebrating unions, embers of fun.
A sneeze! A tuft of feathery leaves,
The breeze, soft and somber.
Tired eyes gaze amazed
At all that’s left of night’s bright wonder.
All night long a blaze went on
Until this stretch of earth turned cinder.
Entropy laughed and chaos danced
While beasts of wood screamed out in splendor.
First went wings, the birds of sky
Flew off in all directions.
Scarred and scalding, scared and hauling
All they left alone and destined.
Next the bugs and biting critters
Pittered, pattered, shuffled and scattered,
Hid under rocks where the ground was still cool,
Beaten, broken, busted and battered.
Then the paws who sniffed the air
With darting eyes, turned and ran
Sprinting through fields with standing hair
And howling cries of living damned.
For the flames were alive this yesterday’s night!
So bright they outshined the stars.
To the forest it felt like the whole world would melt
But it lit up the vastness of night from afar.
They jumped and they flew and fought through the blue
And their orange grins laughed from tinder to tinder.
They ripped out the trees they would need to keep prancing
But shrugged off the rain and burned off the splinters.
The forest was furious this All Fire’s Eve!
The mountains and oceans could tell.
But like the great oceans and mountains it knew
That you’ve got to keep going if you’re going through Hell.
So the sun has arisen and the fires have died.
Creatures come back to the light!
The forest you used has been leveled, abused,
Everyone’s always left home overnight.
Shaken, you step over kindling
Famished, you flip stones and ponder
Wandering orphans and neighbors cross paths
And glistening eyes in tender sonder.
‘What will we do?’ you ask.
‘What ever could possibly come next?’
Afraid, in despair, unaware, there unseen
The seed that from fur falls in your steps.
