Fires run wild, our hands behind the match—
A spark struck in hunger, searing each field it meets.
Forests crackle, bones of the earth crumble,
And in the wind’s howl, the wails of black spruce,
Poplar snapped in two, gnarled branches turned to kindling.
A place that cradles stories, roots, and lives.
We plant smoke where grasses once thrived,
Drive elk and pronghorn to their last frantic sprints,
Burrowing owls vanish into smouldering earth.
What remains of them, once the fire swallows?
Hills turn to ember-strewn ruins,
Prairie ponds recede under blankets of swirling ash
That drifts over fields like whispered frost,
Footsteps disappear into the void.
What is a nest, when fire climbs its walls,
When windows of burrows watch flames rise like fists?
Each breeze carries the weight of a world,
Its breath dense and charred.