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DAB I (for David A Bennett

How do I see it?
As a silt-fine colloid of tiny embers
burning their way
into larger conflagrations.
Surfacing outwards,
diving inwards.

Such a sweet man
your wife said through tears.
And it’s true.
there is a lost, chaotic sweetness to you
that mirrors this sour chaos
rising, baking the life out of you.

I can almost feel the heat;
the desiccating wind within.
Sweeping from the Sahel of your lungs
Outwards like encroaching desert.

I can almost feel rivers of rippled air
rising in convection currents
the stippled, breaking wind
ridge-running along your spine.

I try to isolate the hot places
in order to help you heal.
But they’re too diffuse;
that fine ember-sand everywhere.

Blazes cross-connecting,
jumping your firebreaks,
surging your hillsides
across steaming cisterns
and charred gullies.

And yet you still live.
Still smile and think and dream.
Still plot art in the fire’s shadow.
Your sweet febrile thoughts rise

like bright unruly birds
from steaming lava fields.
As alive and zany and colorful
as your spirit ever was.

Ever is.

Ever shall be.