burning

the west is on fire
through ashen haze,
amber light intensifies late-summer's melancholy for fall,
suffuses yellow grass and rusty road-cut
buckeyes,
long ago surrendered to heat,
dessicated copper leaves cling to bony branches
hot, heavy air,
infused,
with resinous musk,
oak bark,
salty skin
flames rage somewhere,
distant
somewhere within
first moth,
then candle
burning bright
united in love's eternal fire
mountains offer themselves to ravage,
and are reborn