Sunday, November 1, 2020

At Last


 





image: Big Basin Fire  © ABC7 San Francisco


Ashes flutter like moths on a building

inner layers protected by bark

rows of redwoods like witches hats

hoses cannot douse crisp written flames

sparrows rise to become black specks

waterfall stuffed with logs like a coffin.

 

Once shattering black rocks now a coffin

the waterfall with ashes swiftly building

a temporary death, a room of specks

humans who remain, skin stripped bark

camped, hiked, spoken in flames

all that remains, boots and hats.

 

Firehoses can’t enter this room of hats

entire ridge to ocean now flies in a coffin

park founded by a league now in flames

built foundation’s permanent wood building

not iron, not lead, just the song of a lark

first in California, first in its stead.

 

Tail feathers, red rump, eye circles, and specks

even the towhee doesn’t wear a little hat

no douse of seeds will save its art

can’t move, can’t offer a single note

ridges of brown and tan a secret murmur

rows uprooted, a vernacular in flames.

 

Upper crowns of marbled murlettes

canopy umbrella a wardrobe in flames

ashes fumigate the trunk’s knife building

turning moss and lace directly into matts

most likely victims rotating into orphans

no squirrels or crows remain to bark.

 

Scars and old burns now embark

on a vessel off pier tamed and maimed

no warehouse rickety, in a false coffin

moths fairies with winged ashes

a mirror of perfume, but what really matters

thousands of years destroyed in an instant.

 

Time to bury the coffin, specks included

bark imparted within honest flames

deep hats and buildings put to rest.