Summer Burn
by Marina Blokker

blueberries plink time in a galvanized pail

fireweed lean in heat   grasshopper flicks a dry arc

 

heavy air  lake mirror   winds shift   up valleys

up mountainsides   a glint in the distance

barbecue   plunking piano   warm at dusk

 

flint of lightning   strikes   parched trees   each a rod

giant roman candles   torches fling out in the dark

the land is burning   again   but this is different

 

this is global warming   this is an emergency   now

a conflagration   the mountains are Hades   flames lick

roar   explosions   cracks   limbs fall   anguish

 

men in heavy outfits   insignificant trolls   in burning infernos

cones burst their seeds   nature’s rebirth   human equipment

water bombers   helicopters deployed   supplies exhausted

percentage controlled increasing   earth destroying herself

 

season of fire   a yearly rhythm   ground hides roots still burning

beware   soft ash filled holes   some see profit burning

evaporating into the blue   burning to end   what has been

burning to begin   something new   hidden seedlings rising

 

later   photos show   all shades   of grey

 

MARINA BLOKKER's work has been published or is forthcoming in Yellow Medicine Review, Samsara Magazine, indefinite space, Prairie Journal, and the Irish journal Crannog. Her peace poems are in the John Lennon Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland. She has a degree from the University of British Columbia and lives with her family on the west coast of Canada, where the environment continues to inspire her work.

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