Pillars of Ash In the beginning Nature had no voice. Then the gods threw a pest Of fire called language Upon the world And are watching it as it blazes. Now fire clings to the palate, Burns the throat. The smoke of rhetoric smarts our eyes. Tongues of fire consume the page — Paper curling into ash, Perusing fingers sifting to ash, Bodies stiffening into ash, Pillars of ash that’ll topple and disperse In the coming wind and rain.

The Turnings of the Fire And so the burning mass passed Through all its turnings: One half of fire became sea, One half of sea became earth, One half of earth became air, And one half of air – the finer part – Became the creator who did shape Those elements into a sphere. And the sphere hung suspended In a wide circuit Of stars and celestial bodies Split off from the primal fire, Now clustered Around the globe like a host of radiant gods, Casting their rays into the

The Moses Tree From the tangle of its roots, To the nests in its hair The tree blazed white and blue. And the tree sang the Lord’s name in flame until roots and hair had turned to ash.