By Laryn Bakker (published in Prairie Fire, Winter 1999)
In the old days, the
touch of a burning coal
purified a prophet's lips. A
shepherd removed his sandals to
stand before a bush that burned
and was not consumed.
Flaming
horses galloped a man on a fiery chariot
from this world to the next.
The fires that burn today
are of a different sort.
In every city, the poison breath
coughed up by buses and trucks
is evidence of the flame that burns within.
Fire dangles from our lips; it
hibernates in our homes,
hanging from the ceiling.
Houses crumble from the heat,
and tongues of fire brand us, tattooing
dark stains on neighbourhoods.
They live in small places, well-hidden, then
burst from the stacks in our factories.
Entire forests bend and bow,
drop screaming to their knees
as the flames devour them and the
black smoke chokes their children.
Kneeling down, barefoot, to kiss this
earth, this coal with a molten heart,
the thought comes to me:
By the time we have been purified
there will be nothing left of us.
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