fire
on the mountain
fire in the mind
ashes ashes
we all fall down
The Smokies: ridge beyond
ridge of ancient mountains, wrapped in a soft blue haze of rain and the moist
outbreath of trees. The highest peaks are temperate rain forest, mossy and
dripping. But now the picture changes . . . because the climate changes. Hot
smoke replaces the gentle mist as fire consumes the forest, tinder-dry after
months of heat and drought. Crown fires leap from treetop to treetop. High
winds drive a firestorm through Gatlinburg, trapping people in their homes
where they burn to death. Several days have passed and children are still
missing. The Appalachian Trail smolders.
smoke
from distant
wildfires
fills my lungs .
. .
I dream of the
blue planet,
one seed
sprouting in ash
Pollen grains tell
stories. Drifting like gold dust on a
cold wind, grass pollen sifts into lakes, to be buried in mud for 20,000 years.
Grass pollen tells of an Ice-Age Europe covered with open steppes where forests
should have grown—the climate favored trees, not grasses. But layers of ash
tell stories, too—the story of fires that burned the forests, fires set by
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who transformed their world long before the first
factory smokestacks began to spew their plumes of ash and deadly gases.
sparks
from
a stone-age campfire
scorch
the map
crumpled
in my hand
a
dusty oak leaf
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