Slope steep and sluffing, char
loosened by rain, by lack
of root tether, hush not softened
by frond, by duff, by needle
filter. A sharp quiet like the end
interval of empty, shard of silence
after the last note—
—then the emanating, everywhere ringing—
a varied thrush like the nerves
of forest singing, and I
look up the long blackened trunk
to green cedar branches—a survivor
among others. My hand reaches
for a burned stump—shellacked
tooth left jagged and hollow, it gives
beneath my grasp—sponge
of black air collapsing.
This fire: refugia pockets scattered
throughout—fairy slipper orchid,
lupine, lime-green in the rubble
of charcoal. Mosaic fingers of burn stretch
down from the ridge.
I kneel and scan shadow, cone, fallen branch,
see them rising
out of ash, made of ash and rain
of swallowed rock and sugar
honeycombed fruits of long sleep
of quiet blinking in nets
beneath. How long have they waited
for this fire, for this chance
to rise and usher others—two
dots of green lodged
in this fungal chamber, wisps
of cottonwood silk tangled
took hold and sprouted here
in the body
of this brief flesh—
—
Anne Haven McDonnell lives in Santa Fe, NM and teaches creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. A 2023 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, she is the author of Breath on a Coal, winner of the Halycon Poetry Prize (Middle Creek Press), and the chapbook Living with Wolves from Split Rock Press. Her poetry has been published in Orion Magazine, Narrative Magazine, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere.
