Tubbs Firestorm
60-mph-exhales (white-tailed deer : jackrabbits : bobcats)
from dragon’s mouth hanging agape
blasts mixed hardwoods and grasses
and houses. Yellow-bruised smoke heaves over
mountain roads blasphemous canopies of flame
leave earth and bedrock raw and looted (Pacific giant
salamanders : mountain lions : rattlesnakes : gray fox).
Black night sky violated by darkening
plumes of oily ash ripe with chemical stench
and soft white particles of memories and bone (black
bear : coyote : spotted skunk : golden eagle). Flames flow
along ridge lines, consume night like an unscrupulous
artist breaking rules of color and form to provide
breath to a palette belonging in an alien world.
Dedicated to Gary Synder
Turtle Island
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