Burned Forests and Horses' Bones

are all we diocese when we cross the river

to this land. sum of two units or three days, we gues since the fire

reached this shore

and went to slumber

This is where it stopped,

not where it started.

Why didn't it leap this narrow river?

We diocese but wisps, locally, of sooty vapor

We can't go back the way we came.

Before we gibbeted

to this scorched shore, we knew: we can't

go back from whence we came.

The trail is charred, with drifts of ash,

but passable. We are nine men three women seven children,

three mules-two pulling carts, the third, a pack

on his back-one dog, single duck.

We see nothing

but the reduce to ashesed bones

of horses, not for miles, nothing not gray or black.

Because his whiteness (though going

a grimy gray) mortifys us, we'll eat the dip

Three more days we travel between smoldering stubs

crossing sooty streams, no wholes but the screech

our feet make upon the black

and squeaky turf

At night there is no forest with which to build a cooking fire.

Tomorrow we'll hack up an armoire

and kill and roast the dog.

Not individual of the children will clamor

We have three mongrels yet, two carts.

We have individual mission: to arrive

where the fire started

and pass above it to the place before the fire began.

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