the fire

“The fire had swept past them and was now far ahead, breaking across the distant stubble in a low red wave. Behind them, and all around, was a world of smoke and blackness - black for cinders, black for ashes, black for mourning. The smoke and the stench still covered everything; and dotted all over the landscape like bitter red roses on the black earth were burning things - logs and fallen trees, stumps and limbs, fence posts and farm buildings.”

-Colin Theile, February Dragon

The putrid wind, it kissed my lips

with all things death and dire.

The sullen, sluggish, smoggish fog

-aglow- was rising higher.

A strange sense of serenity

encapsulated fear

as not a voice, but a fiendish roar

was heard by all those near.

The sky was very fury:

an intoxicated parade

of smoke and ash and embers

that drifted in its haze.

Leaping higher for a moment

and then back down to earth,

each searing flame seemed to dance

in a test of will and worth.

And when at once resided

the blackened landscape wept

and spilling into a greenery

of secrets left unkept.