Fire Season
Simone Flournoy
I am burned and built
And burned again
An orbit of fires
The venerated touch of a flame to foliage
Undisturbed
Adorned with the dust of dreams and placid existence
History is not here yet
Smoke always overstays its welcome
The uninvited ash asleep on the couch
Scorched landscape eerily silent in anticipation
Awaiting permission
To emerge in all its trappings and furs
A reminder that this earth was not always so Martian
It never belonged to the embers; it was simply on loan from the oaks
And burned again
An orbit of fires
The venerated touch of a flame to foliage
Undisturbed
Adorned with the dust of dreams and placid existence
History is not here yet
Smoke always overstays its welcome
The uninvited ash asleep on the couch
Scorched landscape eerily silent in anticipation
Awaiting permission
To emerge in all its trappings and furs
A reminder that this earth was not always so Martian
It never belonged to the embers; it was simply on loan from the oaks
Simone Flournoy (CMC '22) is a senior at Claremont McKenna majoring in International Relations. She is a transfer student, previously studying at the University of St Andrews in Scotland for her first two years of college. Her work has been featured in the Helix Literary Magazine, the Fresher Publishing Anthology, Messenger Mountain News, and the St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review. When she's not in in the Inland Empire, Simone lives with her family, two dogs, and thousands of honeybees in Topanga Canyon.