Untitled and Unfinished

The tall fall fires out west follow
the humongous hurricanes blowing
across the headline news, shooting
embers across the dance floor valley,
licking into the canyon columns
of textual innuendos of who
belongs here and who doesn’t.

The wind and rain and flickering
flames know no such distinctions.
All belong to the sky and forests,
to the ocean, mountains, and deserts,
to one another embracing bumper
to bumper against the noise unleashed
updating itself every second breath.

Some too old to dance seem left behind.
You can’t fight a hurricane like you can
a fire. The new news is the new normal,
seven by twenty-four and minute by
minute. Still, all we know of the missing
and the ones still on the road is that
they are missing and still on the road.

“Oh, God. Oh, Mother,” the Civil War
soldier cried as he burnt up. Why,
when a single bullet would have sufficed?
The trees are drying and the ground sinking.
Will all not sunk into the sea burn
into the sky? The caravans continue
heel to toe to higher and cooler ground.

And that’s the way it is.