Autumn Fire Poem by Benjamin Rome Clarke

Infernos left are ghouls of fiery brine.
When snorting smoke they trample underfoot
The long and short of all I know is mine,
And yet they've seen not what their torture took.

The dust makes clouds that choke the slender trees.
In bunches bristling, tangled, beaten, snatched,
The ash, away it whisks the brightest leaves,
And creatures I loved but never could catch.

And yet the trial is for the leaf alone
The rav'nous red that would consume it whole
No blame takes - it makes ashes from the bones,
Naught left behind but woeful tears and dole

At last there comes the cold and frost and storm.
Though fire's made nil, my body's no less torn.