The birchbark tinders up,
tearing into the kindling
like a cat on a cod.
Pine knots and split oak
feed and fatten him.
Confined in a ring of steel and sand,
he cannot fend for himself.
The sun is his home.
His children hide in the air and the earth.
The gaseous ghosts of blue jets
wait on his mad whims and whoops.
He joins the air and the soil in infernal matrimony
when they will blow and blast
and break all down to smoke and ash.
Like the sea and the air,
he is in you and I,
in our cells and our selves.
Our appetites and desires burn.
We are baked brown, broken and shared out
to feed the rarest bird
who nests but once in a thousand years.
Other poems in this series:
Three Turns of Seven in the Earth
Three Turns of Seven in the Air
Three Turns of Seven in the Water