ABLAZE

A conflagration beyond measure — Poetry by Lauren Scharhag

ABLAZE

By Lauren Scharhag


October is the end of the burning season
for the crop fields. For everything else,
it’s the beginning. If I were blind, I
would know the month by the angle of
the sun on my face, by the tang of fires
on the air as hearths are lit and pits are
dug, as smokers are packed with meat
and salt, and candles placed in
pumpkins’ jagged grins. The golden
walls of Halloween corn mazes will soon
be ash, scarecrows left to preside over
barren acres. Old timers split open
persimmon seeds to predict the coming
winter’s hardship. It’s the last we’ll see
of the juncos and hummingbirds till
spring; pelicans and cormorants just
passing through. We put out suet to fuel
their travels. The maple and hickory trees
are crimson and gold as phoenix feathers,
the boxelder bugs with their red nymphs
and scarlet wing veins like sparks. The
world ablaze, burning the effigy of
itself. The cider mill presses a harvest of
Galas and Honeycrisp. Darkness grows
long. By Advent, it will feel like it
swallows the days. Season of
homecoming. These good-byes are
temporary. Each one of us a flame to light
the way back. Together, a conflagration
beyond measure. 

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Lauren Scharhag is an award-winning author of fiction and poetry, and a senior editor at Gleam. Her latest releases include Screaming Intensifies (Whiskey City Press), the In the King’s Power series (self-published), and Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet (Roadside Press). She lives in Kansas City, MO.

https://linktr.ee/laurenscharhag

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