Aflame, it itself made
“redeemed from fire by fire”
—T.S. Eliot
This is a world
very wolved
different than it was yesterday
and already begun to cool
as if
it could be
dismissed
I stand
in the burning field
look back and see grief
where wheat
won’t grow.
To thrive I’ve,
we’ve, all of us
it seems
lived in extremes
all of us always
need privacy
this neighborly
edeneternal
has its boundaries
of bindweed
and cacti
on this side of the cliff
not at all
touched by it.
Still, it seems
raging right here
not a bird in the air
the world a fruit
to do with it
and through it
what he will
fog without fail
the house, an island
of ash and I imagine
a blanket of snow
falling still
slowly watering,
wintering in reverse
air aqueous
a waterwall
100 houses
follow.
*
In this world of poem
I can only do what is undone
each movement
stands in for moments
unimagining lightning
imagining a lightening
auroras like cypresses
geomagnetic storms
ornaments
a kindling of the eye
as it shuts before opening
the very first time.
I’m looking for flourishing
I take it in my hands
flour, the breadth
opens alphabets
they hardly stir
to quench it
it finds thoughts
thoughts find
their place
and place
themselves not in line
but along the ridge we walk
so cleanly done
it could not be human
it a word we try not to use
so useful now
it opens it
a promethean gift-theft
is still a gift
fennel-stock of heat
bull bones in glistening fat
beef hides
inside an ox’s stomach
all clay again for the making.
That which
survives it
it made
it fired this pot
it melded this metal
meanwhile all else
else
*
Unspecified it
the formal imperative
up the stunning stairwell
and out
the house
vividly arrested
drops off a cliff
above the tree line
the never summer range
remains
waters suddenly
flowing the other way
back from where they came
path and endpost
gate, forever opens
greets
heat, all but heat
is symbolic
and thus, all but heat
is reductive
it takes the waters
as reins
it follows waves
it holds its own breastplate
it breathes
it sees its
feet stepping forward
out before it it needs embrace
it a thousand leaved
red root pigweed
it cannot be
anything other than
beauty,
its own face raging
it’s bravery
each tool
we yield against it
forged by it
it has a name
which it does not exhaust
or receive
it does not admit it
plurality of seeds beneath
it winded it
toward it
ananke, flag of necessity.
*
too soon it took its foot away
it it without name
from whence it came?
*
or rather,
from whom it flamed?
the iguana carried it
in its head-crest
the flame-tailed finch,
behind its back
the cockatoo,
in her red chest
the water-rat and cod-fish
hid it in their thickets
dogs with burning sticks
on their tails swam the straight
the musk-duck
the crocodile’s mouth
the wallaroo
issuing forth from his penis
little boys and old ladies
with flaming fingers
pointed at it
with it
bird-thieves: woodpeckers,
kingfishers, hummingbirds & hawks
tigers pulling throngs
from their claws.
The sloth carried it
between his shoulders
the coyote brought it
on her hair.
The guinea pig
stole it from the jaguar
the toad
from the vulture
the deaf adder
released it when he laughed
thanks to the dancing deer with combustible
weeds
in her ears.
The caribou hid it
in her headdress
the beaver
in his watercourses
the muskrat in her apron
of marmot skin.
A spider,
having spun a large web
upon which a woodpecker
pecked,
extended a thin but sturdy ladder
to our castor and pollux.
Or, the same spider,
by way of a gossamer balloon,
brought it back
from the moon.
May I present
the robin’s red breast
as evidence of fire
in her chest.
*
But before that
in the smoke
of hoariest history
the sun
moved tidal
and temporal
answering
with tinder
my feather stick
of thin curls
hewed
by love.
I find live timber
not a weapon
but a welcome
a settler’s blessing.
The black war was
a misunderstanding
mariners saw a musket
not a wisp of straw
not an aboriginal offering
but gates of basalt.
The heart like
a covered flame
sings as it is consumed
agnis agile ignis ire
little white flower
noble blue center
reddens when tossed
over the precipice
royalty evidenced:
both laurel trees & lion bones
when shaken, spark
scarf of earth
auburn auburned
crown crowned
the treetops with fire
with ebon honor.
*
Do you know
what happens when
one story falls
upon another?
what happens to bathtubs?
to beds?
what happens
to chimneys?
Let’s see how to tell
it without it
consuming us.
It says, gather beside me
as you have for centuries
tell instead the dream
of the deceased
each of each
carrying one unharmed belonging
down the mountain
before the flame inflames
the alembic of the world
not dreamed
spindle and weave
H.D.’s burnt tree
& how the wind does carry
without barrier
not the seed, but the thread
mustard’s edible leaves
I wear a dress of these
newly picked
encyclopedic
of the soil
incombustible
the forest’s understory
speaks,
says, verily
I say unto thee
today
you will be with me.
*
We must be
in disaster
occasionally
its winds
not tragedy not
the kind that cannot
be overcome
but the coming kind.
We all have it in common
one long longing
to see it renewed
it touches our body
this tree’s obituary
viewed collectively
and what is community but
connectivity held loosely
the pond not burned
to the ground
because it is the ground
the deer standing
safe in its center
and so much easier now to see
the dark place we’ve
lived so long alight
wolves in their sanctuary
foxes in their dens
we position ourselves
wonder what burnt first
& from which direction
we photograph
though no one photo
can hold it
the child, hopeful, says
there may be a corner left
yes,
there may be astral radiance
this little grassy tussock
not an accident
all but Antarctica
melts in its presence.
*
Streams of silver
where the lawnchair
once was
the playset remains
untouched
it calms us
& in its face
we see relief
we see it
for what it is:
able-bodied it
it itself makes
the word
& its worship.
*
At the point of the fl
ame if
the sword lilies
are phototropic
where gladiolas’
if
color gives way
to an invisible
vibration it rains if
a sterile land shimme
little safeling
ring
if ash
en it rains
a little
on the tinder
if tend
er larval
if the dream
gives for
m to that never be
fore dreamed but live
d, if livid
look it in the face
far distance
holy for
est where color
gives way t
o shade
if
it is a
flame
we be
for it
long
ing.
*
We brush it
and see if anything shines.
No thing does
but embers
& the black backs
of our beetles.
It floods us
in emblems
it is
not an element
but an event
like slaughtering
a rooster
where there’s room
and no thing
to ruin.
I’ve said
my prayers
the land is
a mushroom
a morel
honeycombed
hive of the world
and only growing
because it
spread its arms wide.
It held
the lodgepole pine
whose needles
need heat to reseed
the tree where the imagined
and the discovered
meet
it, fire
a gift
however mercurial
is irenic
always plural
surrounded by itself
it is
never singular
it lisps
perhaps we’ll learn
from this
very word earth
to sing
what we serve.
Sasha Steensen is the author of three books of poetry, most recently House of Deer (Fence Books), and several chapbooks, including A History of the Human Family (Flying Guillotine). Recent work has appeared in Jubilat, Octopus, The Laurel Review and The Volta. She teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Colorado State University, where she also serves as a poetry editor for Colorado Review. “Aflame, it itself made” was written after her parents’ home was claimed by the High Park Fire in June of 2012.