qarrtsiluni

We woke in the dusk, the sun
an alien disk of glowing mauve,
the sky bleeding its last blue.
Ashes fell like snowflakes.

In satellite photos, horns of smoke
from the burning California coast.
Yet it wasn’t the aerial panorama,
but a single glance that leapt

like a lion at my throat.
I looked out the window, saw
flames like bodies, crimson-gold,
soaring then dipping, dancing

their way up the long hill
a few miles from my house.
As if life were being told
in non-human speech:

a hymn to all the afternoons
a woman looks out the window
on a rose-bush and the hills,
idle dove-like clouds

— then the red dancing
with devouring gold —
As if God were being told
in triumphant tongues:

a story of how innocence dies
for the sake of a greater story.

by Oriana

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