Puna Burning

Pili grass is a sweet, sweet smell
sweetest when it burns. A whiff like incense
before the stink of sulfur and burning stone
drowns the breeze.

Lady, yours is a harsh love.
Everything owed to you: black sand, blue waves
red-blossomed ohi’a, red-berried ohelo
is yours to take back in a breath of fire.

This place, where solid ground
shakes and roars as loud as surf, boils and flows
like water. Last time, they moved a church
but homes had to be left to burn

in Puna’s woodlands.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside