Image nicked from the internet
shot foot dark bright prairie grass hot ash dead resurgence fight god
Poetic licence: Australia doesn't have 'prairies' so I substituted 'paddocks'.
Acts of God
It was a hot day.
One of those windy summer days.
The air shimmered—
Blurred by the heat.
People stayed indoors.
Animals hugged the shade.
The first ominous sign
Was a small pillar of smoke.
Then the wind took it,
Carried it, spread it
Across paddocks and grasslands
And into the oil-rich gums.
Flames shot over fifty feet
Into the aching air, racing
Through the canopy.
Ash and burning leaves,
Carried by the wind,
Took the fury ahead of the flames.
Houses gone.
Animals dead.
Lives lost.
Nightfall brought darkness
But no relief.
Just the constant threat
Of resurgence.
The next day—bright and clear,
It rained.
◊
very evocative with good imagery. It certainly brought the fear to the surface for me. Spare and sparse . Well done.
ReplyDeleteThis is it, exactly. We have had many wildfires this year already - some close to home and even one in the "frozen north" for the first time ever. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThe closing lines give a sigh of relief after all that happened.
ReplyDeleteYour poem is in itself a wildfire and than that contrast with the last line
ReplyDeleteWe don't have wild fires either. Good use of the words to describe the bush fire.
ReplyDeleteSomething we will experience this summer no doubt.
I remember driving home in the hail of wind driven flames. Thankfully we were on the outskirts of a major fire, but the smoke and the new fires that broke out in spots around us was frightening. Your poem depicts the fury and devastation of a wildfire perfectly.
ReplyDeleteSounds catastrophic especially with the irony of rain the next day - Jae
ReplyDeleteYour imagery comes alive!
ReplyDelete