AS WE MOAN...

It's funny how some poems (or stories for that matter) can start with a single image. In this poem's particular case, it's a series of churches engulfed in flames. I started to think about how and why and this is what spewed out. The more I thought about it, the creepier it became to me.

AS WE MOAN
From the peak of the reservation,
I watch the churches burn.
We all do. I stare at maybe
20 or 30 scattered cathedrals
in the distance, as they
smolder into the night.
The carroty sun of dusk
blends into the crimson flames
peppered through the horizon.
No one ever saw this happening.
Not now or here. As the first one
burns through to its frame, the
weeping begins. We weren’t safe
anymore. None of us. Ever.
As they begin to plummet,
the moans grow louder and
louder and then just stops.
Suddenly.