Brother fire

Brother fire, 

you come

first to nibble, to lick 

the great girth of the ancients,

find unauthorised entry, a dry crack.

Settled in at the heart of each old-wood mountain,

from a thousand steady years you fashion

a crimson toothed tower

to plunge suddenly sideways

into dark flesh

opening yet another bright wound.

You are closing in for the kill 

of the slow, contemplative life,

the earth-cradle community of rainforest.

In November 2019, bushfire reached Terania Creek rainforest in Northern New South Wales for the first time in over a thousand years. The old brush box trees were the catalyst.