Forest fire

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.