Today,
another forest was burnt down.
It's
the third or fourth this month.
I've
often wondered that if you were to catch
All
this smoke and recuperate those ashes,
Would
they account for all of the matter
This
forest once boasted of? Or would some matter
Be
utterly lost, as the shape and name are lost?
Nothing
can be whole again once it's rent, or burnt.
Though
some folk say all the particles are still there,
Hovering,
going somewhere to find a fuller end,
Though
to where or for which purpose no one said.
As
if every particle ought to be accounted for.
My
hunch is that though the entity be gone,
With
the memories of the place and its components,
The
shadow of it lies still in the memories of men,
Till
this too is gone. And that long after its departure
Something
other will be here, city, wasteland, forest perchance.
Make
room for the new, kill the splendour,
Perhaps
these were the thoughts of this pyromaniac.
Whatever
crossed his mind, like that of the others,
Whole
valleys grey with ash and rank with smoke
run
the eye as far as the sunset and its black cloak.
Who
said the mind was like a forest? I can't remember.
But
I now say that the mind is like a forest on fire,
And
the best trees are spent on some mad altar,
and
their ashes fuel the sombreness inside.
Perhaps
forests are meant to burn, like the mind.
But
I might be wrong. All I know is that there are holes,
holes
the size of forests, now, where those minds were.
