(Catching up, for a poem missed on April 11)
Burning
Why are we all on fire?
The world has dipped the rag in gasoline
The sparks fly, spiraling into the night
The gleeful rage,
The drunken destruction
The shattered bottle on the floor of history.
But why are we all on fire?
The stick has been turning--
pressure, more pressure!--
and smoke rises in tendrils from the forest floor
There is a crackle somewhere deep in the dead leaves
And then the air is a furnace
and laughing sprites dance malevolently in the flames.
But why should we have self-immolated?
What good can be done by pyrotechnics
that only fan the inferno?
Why should we open the door on the embers,
and be consumed by the backdraft?
We know the embers are there.
We know the bomb is ticking.
We know the room is full of thick gases, already superheated.
We know that letting the flame taste the air is death.
But we light the flame in ecstasy
And cry out our righteous fury
as the fire burns everything it can reach.
Why are we all on fire?