Half a life ago
When we stood together on the barrier
And stared down the avenue at rubble
With empties right and left emerging full
Haze of the melting pot of home
The odor of the fall
Seared in nose and eye
Until some day we die
But life continued

Can’t shake the scent of the conflagration
Chasing us across a continent
The wind, the drought, the flood, the mud
Unease from here to there
Knowing nothing lasts
Can’t shake this brutal fury
At the old growth lost to the past

Engulfed all these paper towns
Balance as ash dusting down
Waters bursting window seams
Screams and screens and fearing to dream
Whirlwinds throwing up hands
Smoked out of ancestral lands