Smoke Signals

Ravens gather
to read
smoke signals
that rise
like diatonic triads
of metamorphosed
cellulose
into a steel
gray sky.

The product
of some
disturbance regime
like ice,
or water, wind, fire
or a ten ton skidder
and a chainsaw
with a thirty-six inch bar
that rocks
the northern forest
where the ravens roost.

I ride shotgun
in another world
a disturbance regime
of twelve lane freeways
and a van filled
with darbhukas
and djembes,
bodhrains
tambourines
claves, marracas, and triangles.

The distribution
of what I know
as sensible
careens into a place
no GPS can navigate.

The blackberries
are not edible
where the cormorants gather
on the wire skeletons
of electronic lives
the smoke signals
shift like magnetic north
on an obsolete compass
and the triads
switch to a minor key
as the flames fly
from pine to birch
and citibank demands
a disturbing regimen
of voluntary
mandatory
Saturday workdays
to cut jobs
of thousands
as trillions
of paperless
dollars
flow over a dam
made of swiss cheese
and scatter
in the winds
like so many
smoke signals.

Cancer
is what
my life is
my friend
says to me
as I breathe
in the smoke
and wonder
what the burning
will do
to my throat
my eyes
my lungs
my heart
my tears.