Fire Line

Grief is not exactly the same
as desolation: is not the stretch
of space throughout a landscape
that goes on and on as if 
without end. Though we understand
not every blank bristles with 
the resounding echoes of silence,
there is also that hammock of bare
light that swings between a door
and the space before or
beyond it. Perhaps it's no longer
possible to make an accounting
of how we survive our days,
even as winds in the west 
whip up fire with a frenzy 
water can't put out. If that heat
never wished to speak to the earth
again, perhaps what's scorched
might have a chance to survive.