Cost

Jacob Parsons

The wound is still raw
A fire ripped through yesterday

This place is muted now and alien and wrong
Only the basic shape is preserved
Like a terrible forgery abandoned

I drift through and try to keep
The silence. I am a breath in a coffin.
As my shoes scuff the sooted land
The wind picks up the unsettled ash
To scatter for a final time.

I pass an old pine that stood longer than I will,
It lies naked, still softly weeping smoke.
The tears whispering as they rise to console
Those trees still upright, the defiant, that have
Been turned into mocking self-silhouettes.

The landscape has been left monochrome
The colours inhaled
So that flames could breathe brilliance.

I can almost see it.
The bush ablaze and shouting to be noticed
And all the creatures in a frenzy to escape
Beneath the rapt eye of crow.
It was horror and choking and beauty
And it was brief but it was alive. Most alive.
For that zenith the forest gave
And gave, until it ran out of gifts.