Estivate

evenings dreaming of the flood

fictive stormclouds still unfurled

you and I on dark dunes stood

wishing for water in the world

hiding, a salamander slept

lifeless deathless she still sleeps

under blackened leaves we swept

as the mountain shadow creeps

cradled by the dusty stream

of mesquite remains and stone

withered efforts can’t redeem

the softer greens of mornings gone

at summer’s end we scarcely dare

waking to a sky smoke free

the ashen spires on Shasta, spare

the fallen forest waits with me