10,000 Acres Burned

It is not only the arrow that delivers sorrow.

Walking alone through the storm-blown
after a dinner crowded with voices can be

its own devastation. Or a wild mustang asleep

in the knapweed, which is one invasive asleep
in the arms of another. This after the smell

of gasoline and finding scattered on the path

blossoms like the little yellow shells of pistachios.
I’m astonished when the moon holds its wink

all dawn, even through the smoke from the neighbors

who woke early to burn their trash. It’s something
like the opposite of the birds whose song’s absence

made the season transparent and thin for me

without my ever knowing it. Or the arrow—which is
the sorrow—piercing the silence of this sudden loss.