Afraid, Angry, Burning

They were all afraid
and angry;
the sun followed them in fear, anger
turning a dark red before setting
for good
for better
For worse things have happened
he said trying to console them
but no one knew how to respond
to the angry, fearful sun,
its rays were not the same
old rays showering them
with inspiration to praise the day
no, they were murksome
and taught them to be murksome,
fearsome too, burning
like fire does, unforgiving
leaving a mark on everything,
even water, which it marks as mist,
sending it up up up,
maybe, if thirsty life is lucky,
sending it back down
to replenish what has been left
as a desert.
So they burned and burned away,
they learned, they learned--
nothing of the scorched lands
surrounding them, and it was too late,
so everything burned,
sense itself turned into a fine
white-gray-black dust,
they didn’t know what they were saying
anymore, the sensible trust
in one-after-another was lost,
there would instead flare up,
suddenly, sporadically
like the pain and pleasure of a baby
small and deadly large fires,
everyone’s feet were hungry
for the cool places under shade,
or for those places where the water sprays
and stays, like a parade
where the water’s used and used up
to no one’s care because there’s plenty,
or like a swimming pool, that honorarium
of wastefulness and luxury,
or for any place where the pads of the feet
could not feel seared,
but no, fire is what we got
and more fire, as though we were to learn
what is ever behind our gadgetry--
for we have become a veritable terrarium
of the far-reaching life of technology--
fire and ever fire, old tales
of fire and conquests and fires sealing
the elements with its power,
fires helping us shape metals and stone
until it burns us in turn,
burns us first down to the bone,
then, again--always--down
to the fine powder, the powder one leans
down to and rubs between his thumb and fingers,
unaware that there was once,
at this very spot, this meager plot of land--
perhaps it is his backyard,
or the edge of a parking lot--
someone fought a good fight,
not for the good but for something,
something that ignited them,
turned those powder kegs
into the dust and terrible bits
always left behind after
an explosion.