Fyren: A Collection
Written by EA Baker
The Season of Flame
The wildflowers that once
gilded the hills and
valleys have become
tarnished,
fading into brown
brush that waits
impatiently for a spark
to set itself alight.
I rage to wrangle this memory
before the demons of time
dispose of the bustling
green and yellow
bloom, before the SoCal
heat kills spring and its lush
dream for the desert
land. I fight ‘till the season
of flame ravages the wilderness,
eating away the dying flora
as it washes the earth
with its fiery birth.
Fireside
Dragon-wood scales
crack and shrivel into ashen
hide, roasting charcoal
grey as orange lines form
new pathways across gnarled
obsidian continent, floating on a dissipating
cloud of carbon embers. My eyes
stare at beating heart flame, each rising
tongue extending, then
extinguishing, remapping the air
above its coughing refuse into blood-red
spine, digesting into pine-crushed
alchemy. Lingering heat
dwindles with each passing
breeze, until all warmth
has turned cold, puffing out one
last white line, curling upward in a swaying
spiral, then fading into a rising sun.
Rebirth
Spark flashing bugs and smoke
smelted butterflies chuckle
from the center, a hearth that never stops
muttering flutters through white-washed
entangled hair. Glowing marred
and scarified skin
bathes the walls with epidermal
gridlock, casting a shadow that haunts
mantle promontory where lidless
opal armors itself with black
diamond pinions—never moving.
Wearied of bone erosion and muscle
shucking, the throne languished
King roused to the humming of the
mountain, it's earthen tongue
vibrating wind cut
shrills and rock arpeggios. Puckered
lips produced frost
dagger breathe, sending entrancing
melodies tumbling down
it's slopes. Axe cleaving
syncopation and ice pick
timpani ricocheted
between snow melted
precipices, becoming lost
behind a cloak of drowning
clouds, shrouding the bearskin
Lord from wisps of scythe
stalkers and soul snatchers
schlepping at his ankles. Jutted
masonry surrounded glacial
fang, darkening the pine wood’s
dance all the way
to the sea. The last block of wood
corrupted
grey, trees shook their branches
dry, crops and fertile
fields rotted
black, animals trotted
spellbound into caves,
embers feasted on the
Hall, horizon’s
cradle extinguished—ash suffocated
everything. Pitching head
first into a bed of fir
and oak, coughing smoke
and steam into the cardiac
painted sky, hundreds of blooming
sunflowers expanded within the King's
chest, releasing a storm that rekindled
the hearth's gaping
mouth, peeling apart from the inside out.
