Zakia Carpenter-Hall The Earth-Eating Fire
“They said if we suppress all these fires, we end light burning, we will have great new forests. And we did – we had so much great new forest that we created a problem.” ~ Stephen Pyne, fire historian
Oya’s dress of smoke hangs in the air a texture of haunting, a series of negatives, transparencies, x-rays. we see through an oak’s missing heartwood, ghost of gnarled roots upturned, exposed, releasing an ecology of spirits, the whole forest spins, as if on display. open pinecones gummed in resin, sink them into soft soil, spell of effluvium, fumigate – smoke be the cure. separate good fire from wild, peel back brambles layer by layer. may running waters reach our interior with the help of your embers. the fire-fearful, fear flames will jump holding lines — (run, fly, shape-shift) as they sometimes do into communities fear fire cannot be controlled conned something as powerful as fire fear fire in all forms
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