California Fires - 2025

My heart is breaking 
as the fire wins,
An elemental only doing
What its nature demands:
Eat, heat, repeat.
Some spirits walk on
As the fire fights
Any efforts to defy its nature.
We count, one by one,
those escorted by fire
To the edge of understanding:
bitter taste of pain on one side,
On the other, wholly unimaginable
to us. Holy. And unimaginable.
We are slow to learn their names,
To understand the holes
Burned in families, communities.
The wind is doing 
what it's designed to do:
Feed the fire,
to do what its nature demands:
Eat, heat, repeat.
My heart is doing what it's designed to do:
Break.
Break, for the powerful presence
Of absence.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2025

Poem

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Cummings Avatar
April 16, 2025 at 9:45 AM
“The holes burned in families” - what a powerful and searing line. Well done.
Sim Avatar
April 16, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Thanks, Kevin... even a poetic comment! The word "searing." Perfect!
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