energy

the people woke me. people

in their worst clothes running

through the streets to the light

beyond the skyline. sirens

slaughtered the peace my neighbors

craved that night. all of them

gathering to the burning gas station

beside our village, like children

flocking to one descending god. oh,

what proximity does. we were moving

closer to our dooms, half-naked

and wet at the toes, climbing walls

and passing on pails. swayed by the sight

of our children in fear, and the tremors

in the atmosphere bidding the humans

to run to the heat, and borrow its fierce

motion to fight. i enjoy stillness, too. but

i relish any resistance to it. to keep families

from disintegration. to wield courage

is to yield to your maker, to your weak

but whole will. to be so near the glow

you feel it on your cheeks. to be

so bare and dire like life,

the call of fire, our changings-forever.

it took two hours to go home safe.

the moon flared the sidewalks white.

the streetlamps singed them orange,

as our footprints blackened the trail back.