When the Wildfire Burned

The ground was crow-black as the ashes took wing in the breeze, flowing in hot breath across a grief stricken earth. Charred trees, now barren of leaves, stood leaning...drunk, like numb sticks, ready to snap with the next lash of wind, whipping the flames into a brazened brawl. Oh, but no shame there as the earth lay bare for all to see, raped by a blaze, begging tears of mercy to fall, to slake the fevered thirst. The air was thick with smoke as all life sniffed danger, seeking refuge- around a bend, beside a pond, an edge, a corner- to somewhere beyond the clash of ocean tides dipped in wet mist...but the torch spread wider. "Not here!" it cried to the coyote, "Not here!" it screeched to the deer. "Fly higher meadowlark!" (blinding her flight.) "No, No, not here!" Tumbleweeds scurried over seared land, dying in barbed wire, as the flames licked higher, stinging wheat's ear. People bowed heads in prayer, teetering between hope and fear- Then awakened to a blanket of white, stitched by angels and laid down by God, sometime in the night.