Fire-starter

Jonas Jordan, Army Corps of Engineers,
"An oilfield on fire," uploaded 2007

A soft metallic sky, the color of magnesium;
the fire-starter I once carried in my pocket.

A sharp ridge on Wy’east pares a curl from a
low cloud scudding by, then scrapes another.
Will they pile up and catch, I wonder. It’s dry
to the east; they just need one spark to flare.

Deep deep down, below the green skin on which
everything that we love lives, there’s a lake made
of fire. A crack in its surface, and we burn too. On
that day, a nacreous sky will weep soot made from
calcined bones, from alder ash and fir char, from
all our arguments and our leave-takings, our hate.

Something new will swim up from dark ponds, after.
Will it glisten in the sunlight, as you, my love, did?