Inferno

Gripping the wheel,
at midnight
I drive up the road
where the firestorm broke the barriers
and jumped across the canyon
to run down the hill to the sea
in a great joyful
all consuming roar,
of the pine tree's
orgasmic moment of reproduction,
releasing a menacing
mushroom of a black cloud
over our heads
darkening the noon sun.

Left and right
the stumps of pines
outlined black
some still standing
as if whole
dried up in shock,
 

The whole mountain side
glows,
like a distant city,
lighted up
by the reluctant
olive trees
their core slowly
eaten away by embers.

The pines were old,
their sides gouged out
dripping resin tears
into tin catchers,
nailed to their trunks,
no young pines growing
in their stifling shade.
They reproduce by fire.

The old olive trees
have often been gutted by fire
maybe even before
the first historic
persian invasions.
You can see them in the groves
the great great grandfathers of all,
with thick hollow
convoluted trunks.
The burned out stumps
grow new shoots
in the spring,
even the roots
throw out tender leaves
claiming
eternal life.
 

It is to me
human transient
scampering away
in the small timescales
of my life
that the ecological disaster
seems complete,
as I drive through,
a walker on glowing embers
of the inferno.