Why the Earth Spat Fire – August 2022

When the Earth calmed down

from the long agony

of her waterless birth,

She spat Fire, and certain possibilities emerged.

The bones of animals,

the fins of unborn fish, and

the blood of scavenger birds

Were waiting for shadows to become durable

and for dust to recognize gravity.

 

From the ash of Earth’s spent energy

cooling moss crept forward.

Seas of salt ate up shorelines, and

rock defined the essential boundaries

Of ancestry. Fire devoured

land to make it habitable.

All along the shores and deserts

and mountaintops, everything

developed eyes and hearts

until Fire was finally satisfied.