Eulogy by Smoke.

Eulogy by Smoke.

-Written after the bushfires of February, 2009

What is left after the fires?

What do we hold in a handful of

Ash?

What prayer is heavy enough to

Close the eyes of the dead and

The dying?

When flame has gone -

When bodies have planted themselves in the soil

Like seeds waiting for a new

Burst of rain –

What then?

What then

But a place not even poetry

Can fill?

What then but a desparate

Attempt to forget,

To pave over? To rebuild?

But smoke does not forget.

And as our hands desperately work

To fill the places flame left blank

A single rising plume of smoke cuts a line in the sky

And disperses.

Let this be the eulogy

No human tongues

Can utter.