Twisted Cowboy Blog

July’s scalding wind scattering black confetti.
A smoke squall, a column eclipsing the Divide,
torching spruce, spotting outside fire lines.
Sparks in the canopy, igniting drought-dried trees.

Like the full moon rising we watch the fire light,
picturing favorite places smothered, forever changed,
unwilling to envision the fate of elk and stray cattle.
While sleeping, smoke settles, waking the animal self.

Dreams of cool zephyrs, meadows snow-swollen.
Sunrise screened through viscous smoke.
800 blistered firefighters battling scorched timber
Slurry filled air support, unattainable containment.

Then, a singular breeze, snow dusted granite,
A shrug from nature, a chance to catch our breath.

Reprinted from Twisted Vignettes: Poems and Photographs.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 10:02 am and is filed under Poems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.