Far away the world is burning.
Smoke drifts from the corpses of trees
And distance becomes a substance,
Layer upon layer sifting through the air.
The heat has melted the sun.
Wind stirring the pall
Moves it like paint strokes:
A bright blood stain in the ashen sky.
The news this week has been of death—
A child laid low.
A cancer lived inside his cells,
Eating hungrily, a massive conflagration.
Smoke within and without,
The remains of disaster.
Eyes sting and ragged breath drags across the dry throat.
Through the tangible distance there is silence.
Such fear can rise before these signs of apocalypse.
The heart of things has cracked
And lies broken,
Motionless in the distorted light.
Night comes.
In darkness, in the fire-rich soil,
Through the fissures of pain,
Soft green things raise their hands like prayers.
Clare Wilson is an MFA candidate at Eastern Washington University. She has lived in the Northwest for most of her life and finds that this experience has deeply informed her writing. She has had poems published in The Lost Country and nonfiction published in The Remnant Newspaper.