When fires hold the earth captive and the trees grow alive dancing

Like fiery beacons,

Singeing the earth's alchemy

And turning its story, its past, its bones into uneven lines of ash,

What do the leopards do?

Do mobs of bats lift them up and drop them off to someplace safe?

Do they run and run fast until they have no legs —

Until their tails catch fire?

Do they roar till their voices are snatched by fiery birds and hoolock gibbons?

Or do they grow wings

And fly through the air choked with smoke

To the smog-veiled sun —

A pirate-eye in the sky;

As the fiery trees keep dancing and dying,

Dying and dancing —

Their phantoms up in the air,

Spreading their ancient, spaghetti branches

To comfort the leopards in flight?