they went up in flame carbonous slivers of bone skin dust
camellias rain speech ashy birdsong playlists
of unspoken impossible lyrics
it was life that burned them
that burns me as their future-present nebula of cinders
I sit in molten night as ancestors pour from the center
of my body a stream so tangible it almost knocks me down
I can barely stay seated on this dark sentient ground
whose tides rush past leaving my feet hollowed in sand a long pull
of something like heavy light coursing
into unknotted tributaries it goes on a long time
not what I asked for or expected
the ancestors purposeful and intent, freighted like Klamath river logs
on their way to reforest themselves, silvery as salmon pressing against
fern-edged pools made whole in mouths of unhindered light

Meredith Stricker

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