Swallow the Sky

Burning

Excited electrons lick the morning with alacrity;
Dried culms cackle at honeyscukles boiling
in their own sugary blood ~ fitting execution
for false usurpers and shallow tyrants.

Celebratory plumes of sulfurous smoke,
saffron and ochre, stream through pedal aggregates
and lift off the ashy entisol; roots and rhizobia
exhale relief and jubilate their liberty.

~Michael Gabriel Booth, 11 October 1999