Each morning overwhelms,

Light rising from behind dark mountain

Walls of fir, madrone and oak, bright blasting

Waves of fire through lingering dark

Canyon lurking sheets of drifting cloud,

Little may the creature do before this but be swayed.

Thousands of dawns in memory,

This one still rends, reaps, and reveals shadows

No idea knew dwelt among the stones and leaves.

A mother's ghost and the swinging

Arm of a father, the eyes of friends now ash,

The dreams of a child who knew not of the pyre.

The immensity of winds tumbling from

Distant stars descending the river's cut,

Worn right through this old heart which still breaks.

The distances more vast than arms

And eyes and organs may contain and hold,

Thought turns to you, and roots grow deeper down.

In the rising torrent of burning

We rise to that which renders and radiates,

Giver of life astounding like magma in the veins.

A mere drop of this fire is

Enough to incinerate, yet still I persist,

Each nerve, each cell, four limbs, to galaxies attached.