The woods are ablaze. We sweat in our greens
and yellows, digging a line amidst clouds
of fire-chaser beetles. Our arms become our Pulaski’s
as we hew to the black. At first, we took selfies
of the flames shooting from our drip torches,
the pines combusting. But when the burned deer
and bear cubs limped from the woods, when our lungs
scorched, we stopped. What we once called trees, we now
call fuel. Someone spins the weather, a clue
to which way the wind is blowing. Decades from now,
shoulder-high growth. Each of us dreams
of a phoenix but is too shy to mention it.
Pyrophytes need conflagrations to germinate.
We all follow orders, inner imperatives.
