Firewave
The term “firewave” is beginning to appear in discussions of increasingly widespread and intense wildfire events. This poem takes the emerging word and imagines what it might mean if the heat wave itself becomes inseparable from the wildfire it creates.
The heat wave has become a fire wave,
Summer winds sow sparks as bees sow pollen;
A planet slowly learning how to burn.
From America to Spain, the frightened flee,
From flames that chase them through the haze;
The heat wave has become a fire wave.
By boat they flee the coast, by road they leave,
As flames run faster than the word can spread;
A planet slowly learning how to burn.
Parched earth cracks beneath the scorching sun,
And every wind may fan the flames anew;
The heat wave has become a fire wave.
The seas grow warm, the seasons lose their way,
Old names fail us, new words must be found;
A planet slowly learning how to burn.
Until the Earth itself becomes the flame,
Until the forests, fields and cities merge;
Into one fire without boundary or name.
The heat wave has become a fire wave,
A planet slowly learning how to burn—
And dust might have the final word.
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