Salvage Burning

This ridge, and the next one north,
all those south and those black ones

running east northeast. Opening
from the powercut up both sides

of the miles of crushed basalt roads,
torn plastic tarps hurriedly arranged

over the smoldering stacks.
In this rain, the black stumps shine

like shattered cannons
while limbs clatter in the wind.

Thin necks of smoke writhe up
from the weave of roots and useless

wood, their origins in those
beaded necklaces of flame

and I have the strange desire
to hold them in my mouth

like a nostalgia for a land
I hadn't known I missed.

Far below, trucks rip up
the surface of rain

silvering the highway, and I listen
to the way it calms itself,

accommodates the fists
of rain, sweeps on,

as the skeins of smoke
and cloud open on

a hundred deer, wading among
the ruined bulks and pyres,

their teeth scissoring the few shoots,
sword ferns rotting into winter reds.