Northern New Mexico
Wildfire’s seventy-third day.
It’s taken that many days for you
to cross the ocean of hope.
I study the darkening skies 
as you cruise over the peaks
last vestiges of the Rockies.
Mountain-high clipper ships
plying the high desert main.

Your long bulbous forms 
like the steely underbellies
of sea-raking tankers 
slowly close ranks over a blaze
six hundred times Dresden’s
inferno in World War II.

As you offload your cargo 
as precious to Stone-Age man
as fire itself 
I imagine living and dead
raising in unison
their parched voices 
their drought-raw throats 
praising the generosity
you withheld for months.

I listen to your rare music
on skylight and roof 
recall with gratitude
your fire-quenching grace 
replay without ebb sadness
over arks of rain that never
harbored in ground 
nimbus’ empty harmonies 
torched into requiem.