By Kashiana Singh
*2020 California wildfires are still raging
there is fire, everywhere
an inferno of shadows as
anaemic as the men who
bleached the ground of its
resilience, its benevolence
the ground that rises now
into a billowing cloud, of
lashing tongues that
hiss and piss
at everything
they see below— the ground
is a charred body, dead in
a concentration camp
left
to singe for water—
parched
tall forests are falling
to our fallen grounds
no more their spines
can hold our organs
destroying the path
to verdant morrow’s
no more these tunnels
can hide our shadows
cleansing of terrains
to garish
fire tongues
no more a kiss of love
will erase our own rot
an ash
spitting death
to frescoes on my sky
no more dripping blue
into our deranged souls
the walls are punctured
to gaping battle holes
no more a loving nest
of a futureless hope
the rivers are in wailing
to arson, ignorance
failing
no more erasing pestilence
bleeding into its crust
these patterns repeat
lyrical, a greek poem
unfolding
before and after us
flames into flames
we extinguish
our own
as water rises itself into a
high tide, feverishly some
of us wobble into the
stagnant water
bearing on our backs
fistfuls of these savanna’s
cawing
cooing
crying
into a smokeless horizon
where a weary
Noah
awaits at the edge
of his burning ark
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Kashiana Singh lives in Chicago and embodies her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her everyday. Her poetry collection, Shelling Peanuts and Stringing Words presents her voice as a participant and an observer. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills is a journey through 10 cities – a complex maze of remembrances to unravel. Her poems have been published on various platforms including Poets Reading the News, Visual Verse, Oddball Magazine, Café Dissensus, TurnPike Magazine, Inverse Journal. You can listen to her reading her work on Rattle, Songs of Selah and Poetry Super Highway episodes. She serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor for Poets Reading the News. Kashiana carries her various geographical homes within her poetry.
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