Thunderhead

Would you really rather know
Uncanny omens that worked,
Over the weather forecast?

It’s not uncanny enough
How often statistics work?
You still crave the ominous.

This is the human mind’s way—
Find and use something that works,
But stay in love with the dark

Hope that doesn’t really work,
That you wouldn’t want to work,
If you thought it really could.

Then They All Burned

It sinks down. Can you . . .
You can take something like this
But not this, later . . .

The light crawls along
The edge of the wildfire cliff
From this perspective,

Now the fires are gone,
So barely surviving pines
Look like a sad line

Of soldiers climbing
The thin, scorched crest to nothing
Much they know about . . .

You have. There were rules.
Seasons, time, syllable counts.