'Poem for the week' -- "Burning Bushes":
It’s fall here, so all the bushes are burning:
engulfed in red and cool to the touch.
Proud and sentimental and safe.
But the world is burning with unholy fire,
and I watch crimson flood the canvas through the screen.
These are no happy little accidents.
This is the history channel in real-time,
unsanitized by temporal distance.
Freshly orphaned babies, limp in the arms of bewildered strangers.
A soccer ball, tearfully unreturned to a now-dead friend.
The beeping pulse of life-support gone dark.
Screaming and blaming and weeping and terrifying silence.
It’s a wildfire, unquenched by tears and prayer.
There is no flamed pillar of divine presence—
only waste and ash, apocalyptic devastation.
I hold a vigil in my yard,
stroking blood-red leaves as though lighting a candle,
projecting my burning pleas into the darkness.
There is only static.
Please don’t remain static.
-- Emily Cash, Driftwood Prayers
