Dusk slipped through the broken fingers
of the forest, where nothing grew
but round, copper mushrooms
shiny as dropped pennies,
and shocking white constellations
of fungus in the snags
the fire chief made us promise
not to sit beneath.
A mountain slithered away below our feet.
Ash churned at my ankles,
my boots firefighter-approved,
unscuffed and thick.
My long raincoat useless
as a stone in my backpack.
The sky was bright gray,
dull pink, hazy with dust.
We cupped our hands
around our mouths
and hooted into the sunset
like searchers calling the name
of a missing child.
I had never known this mountain
unscalded, newcomer that I was
from the land of lakes.
On the last ridge
of light,
we met a woman weeping
for the trees she remembered.
Nothing had not been changed,
not even the limp-leafed survivors.
The burn clung
to the windward side of the trunks
like shadows
with no place to go.
We went on
searching, headlamps strapped to our hardhats.
The governor passed a law to protect
the electric company’s innocence.
We heard no answer
except, at some greener altitude,
the encouragement of coyotes.
A distant roar of semi-trucks.
The sound of kicked stones
falling and falling
into the river
still far below.
