All night on Mt Aylwin, the dragons opened
And shut or squinted their flaming eyes.
Body woke repeatedly whenever the scent
Of smoke grew particularly acrid in the air,
All the cabin windows open, daughter dreaming
Restlessly on her pallet in her cubby, hugging
Her stuffed familiars to her. Finally, a new
Smell, petrichor, the first rain on the dust
In weeks, and then a drumming downpour.
By morning, the threat and high summer
Had passed. The weeks of heat and haze
Had broken. The old Kootenay rains were back
Sluicing to the lake. Relieved and disconsolate,
I tried to pull my composite parts together,
Ready to go forth as if a single being, solo
Into the dragons' now vanishing world. I tried
To admit that it had not worked out, none of it
Had worked out. Anything gone is long gone
The instant it's gone at all. Time to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment