Mountain Bushfire Poem by Kenneth Ivo Mackenzie

Full moon. The brazen eye of midnight scans
the black and swollen mountains oozing fire
high over the indifference of the sleeping plains
hazed with the perfumed smoke of death and fear
under the radiant zenith. It is not far
from here to the wild flags of havoc flying
out of the doomed and bannered trees before
the west wind, hilarious hunter plying
nets and whips of flame, the trumpet playing
a ghastly fanfare.