The moon is astonishing the sky.
The mother of all pearl,
bald in her white gleam,
and the virginal purity of it–
incredulous and bright as an eye
over the fires that burn in the furze.
The stark gold spikes of the gorse
shrivel like heretics, they burn in a purge–
their hot petals ascending in soot.
See?
This is our evidence–
they are guilty, their branches–
how they crackle and snap.
Smoke strangles the wilderness,
rolling its carpets of carbon monoxide.
In the Hollow, the foxes are crying–
each cough bled down to a hacked bark.
The bushes are lethal as faggots,
the fires are ringing them in
so that I can’t bear to look at them.
Their vague, stricken shapes
scurrying in a mass,
frantic about the black centre,
the centre of the end
in a halo of flame.
On the wind sparks and ash rise
in a flurry, brilliant and effortless.
Smoke rolls down the slopes.
Sirens blare in the distance.
The foxes huddle and are still.
The Hollow smokes and blackens,
and the skulk drops into silence.
The moon sees this.
She too is stricken, look–
she has covered her face in ash.