Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 1. May 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094
Fire in the Snow
--- Kristen Roberts
No glass-bender would
incite a fire that irate,
no blacksmith would
leave this trace
but it’s been years and
the fire’s still here
in the snow, in the
riddle of singed
litter
beneath unwitting white
and in the trunks that
lie charred,
each black drip of thaw
riveting us to a past
most experienced only
through news,
to a fire we all laid
kindling for.
It burns on in the bare
tree bones that leap
and lick at the sky,
posturing in grotesque pantomime.
It’s locked in each
sapling’s intrinsic flaw
(their every cell coded
to ignite)
and in the apposition of
their height,
their vigour
insensitive, their verdancy crude.
These are not transitory
stains;
it’s an obituary written
on country,
an epitaph to a world
we’ve pushed to the brink -
from here on, there will
be fire in the snow.