Inside sirens, emergency cycles
through its opera. Inside trucks,
firefighters suppress alarmed fear.
Inside firefighters, hearts cycle
adrenaline, oxygen. Inside
an arsonist, psychic rats chew wiring,
conscience is condemned, humanity
reduced to carbon.
Inside a journalist, a white crow
pecks at scraps of doom. Inside
the burning building, a chorus
of beams wails, moans. Each room
inhales a demon of seared air.
Inside residents who escaped, old people
row across a moonlit lake, and tall grass
whispers thanks to rain. Inside
our appreciated homes and rented units,
we hear sirens syncopate Doppler effects.
Inside our ears, an infant sleeps
through local commotion. Outside
silence now, campfires along
the mind’s rivers go out, leaving
only mutterings of smoke
that leak rumors to the sky.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
'we hear sirens syncopate Doppler effects' - as Eliot said of something else, 'a phenomenon I have often noticed' but in my case not thought to put into a poem.