(Title from ‘Ceremony After a Fire Raid’ by Dylan Thomas)

By Ellen Reich

Eruptions

in a wheat-field of flames

send infant sparks

falling like water fountains

to dry ground

before a belfry’s timber work

is consumed

by fiery mouths

when a wind is born.

I’ve seen the barren-wasted

Malibu hills after wild-fire wars.

Their stubble-leavings black

and tortured. Stumps knob out

like awkward cactus flowers

on devil soil where ribbon snakes

search for scorched meat

on little skulls of rodents

and birds have flown away

toward their promise of stars.

(Previously published in Blue Unicorn)