The pine beetles flow like smoke from the coursing bark, or
is it pine trees harbouring a fluent action of the light through
the crusts of air & swimming seethe of rashed bug. Flickering
            clicks the expert’s armour, dehiscent
            aperture, alarm across
            the river blur in vivid
            tongues of miragey heat.
            You hear the air—the olive
            gear of the firefighters striped
            red: quite heavy
upon them. The face of the guide grows grim beneath deafening
winch-&-rotor technology, night inlays a constellation
of head-lamp coordination—the cooled-down, emotional granite.
My leisure is orange. The dreamcatcher rotating
            above my bed is
            sizzling immolated
            harm. I held it over the upraised
            lamp, shook & blew, to remove
            the worsening dreams yet now
            remorse—we’re boiling dry
            the otter’s copse, a notion
no volunteer could suckle. And if only the rationale
to plant white trees were magma down the estuary:
disappearing into beautiful flame. Yet, forests
comprehend no notion of blame or thankfulness even
as roots communicate by electricity in their bestseller.
            Choppers pour, a jissom
            of fluid upon the wildfire.
            The wild disaster approaches.
            Listen how weather
is finally alien to us, & governments ping the maps,
teary to gather. Oh god—the habitat grows totally molten
            with combustible ashes, I’m crying emotional
            magma onto the hissing
            estuary: shimmery to witness the issue
            of steam. The hoses suck
extruded river-water in long sagging lines
of spray, we love that: volunteers kneel in the ditch
& smother the ranks of pine with clay—braying
descent of human & multiple animal death. Oh, & suddenly
            the beetles grow resilient
            to negligent winter, emerging
            early like a kiss of alien
            hunger to the coursing bark:
            literal absence of skylark.
We never knew the harm would be expressed in
lush Fahrenheit bitches, oh god the habitat
sags & roof & tiles as solar panels, I fucking
love you. I thought I did my part with
            solar panel tiles: Now the
            moose is ripping its own hide
            from itself as it stumbles
            from the river hissing
            inextinguishable
            immolation—
a flood cancels a wildfire obviously was a naive idea,
sort of existential candle between the moistened
fingertips flop, & we’re saved by another pessimistic headline: