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.