At The Pond

At The Pond © 2007 David Coyote
Photo © 2007 David Coyote
As I fed the fish at dawn
the early sky was blue and clear,
and birdsong, music in the trees.
These sounds I love went missing
when the fires roared and hot ash
filled the air.

So much loss of life – and pain
as fire takes its greedy meal
and feeds on homes again,
moves on as though a force insane
was loose somewhere out there,
burning everything.

Before we arrived, for what it’s worth,
the sage and chaparral were bones
that fed the flames, consumed the bush
whose seeds took heat to open,
to sprout in coming rains,
roots deep in nourished earth.

Flames abated, licked their claws ~
I’m sorry for the anguish caused,
yet understand this cycle scouring
land to stone, watch people pause
and stare at blackened devastation,
a truth – just one of nature’s laws.

Most survive these firestorms,
rebuild their loss and sigh, have friends
who could only stand and scream or cry
at what this savage fire does to land,
whose dreams all blew away
as soot and darkened sky.

But today the air smells clean again,
not filled with acrid blinding smoke,
and birds are back – take wing in wind ~
the chain of life’s not broke.

©

david coyote
10-24-07

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