When I first wrote this poem I thought it would be the beginning of a longer piece, something with more of a redemptive arc. I tried and tried to find the rest of the poem, but nothing else fit.
Reading it now, I love that it stops where it does. That it doesn’t try to soften the terror of watching one of life’s autumns sweep in around you.
And now I can see that the redemptive arc is the poem itself—just the fact that it exists. That there’s a person called Me who survived the annihilation, who endured the long wait for spring, who can look back with deeper eyes and say, “I remember when…â€
When That Fire
The destroying fire
is coming into
the leaves
again—
oranges and deep
reds gathering
around the
edges,
preparing to consume
whole trees,
turn forests
into
boneyards. I remember
when that fire
came for
me.
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