Fire’s Death Knell
by Odin Roark

Just hours before
Imagination lived
Mind and heart’s future
Seemed secure

Nesting birds
Den-hidden fox
Burrow-safe chipmunks
Pond-cooled fish and frog
Flourished

One’s return bodes ill
For heat has swallowed all
Save ashen tree stumps
Coated by air-dropped retardant

Once a house
Now a fireplace only
Dirt and rubble floor
Where yesterday’s antique planks
Once retained history’s pride

All of what once was
Alpine flowers’ color
Lilly pond remembrances
Pine and Aspen shade
Must forever be imagined

Ash laden smoke and cinder
Smothered one’s grand pond of paradise
Its death knell dirty-glass-reflection
Knows now only suffocation
Its drowning of precious remnants
Ripples the gray pale covering reflected recalls
Drifting upwards
To vanish

For one’s heritage structure
Exists now a minor statistic
Nature’s fearless blaze extinguished
Homeless smolder leaves behind
But a fearless flame
Only momentarily quiet

As a scorched graveyard
Of yesterday’s winter spring summer fall
Remains buried
Awaiting fate’s rebirth season
When Nature’s undercover restoration
Reveals its magic
One can only mourn what once was
While knowing what is to be
Remains life’s secret

Until one is ready