Breathing Fire

(Pennsylvania wildfires, south of Pittsburg, March 2017)

I walked a wide circle yesterday 

on a Carolina one-way thin road

in worn down sneakers, searched

past gated driveways, through gardens,

and backyard boats, for a place to sit

while striders skipped ripples by the lakeshore.

Mist teasing on the smoky air, 

the water is not free, cordoned off 

by private property.

The din of a thousand 

non-native birds crowded in oak trees. 

I stood beneath falling acorns they stirred.

Anguished calls incited the anguishing of another.

Frantic, inconsolable. Crows glided like vultures

in curious vigil above the gathering. Newcomers.

No territory rights, aliens

in no familiar migratory flight,

banished southeast.

Mothers who lost eggs and young 

in the charred mountain nests of Costa County

were the loudest, cursing all flame

back to its hellish lairs. They were stitching

the sky to the trees, as one wounded body,

shifting back and forth, crazed

between limbs and wind. 

I'm sorry, I whispered,

and as I violated their space

they raised their voices to a fever pitch.

The birds must think we breathe fire.

How dare I disturb their grieving mothers. 

The feathered tempest moved to trees

of other houses. And I wrote a letter

with my breath in sparrow-song and sorrow,

back into the darkening west, praying

rain be the forecast.