After The Fire

December 7, 2025 Poet: Howard Osvold Artwork: Red Shank Tree by Cindy Triplett

After The Fire

Time and motion stand still

The air, the mist, the light,

The solid form of a tree,

Silhouetted, blackened, denuded,

With anguished,

Human like limbs,

Not reaching out for light, for life,

But fleeing, crying out,

Desperate, panicked.

But now nothing moves

All is stopped, All is silenced.

The mind rebels-seeks to look away.

The force of perspective, born by the very earth itself

Overpowers, compels one’s gaze towards the dark and darkly twisted trunk

And out to broken limbs. Sharpened with thorn or spear like points

Strange twisted forms curved

As though dancing macabre and writhing

With the infernos galling blast of scorching winds,

Boiling the very pith and pitch

From its hitherto safe and secure life beneath the bark

The now curled, shriveling bark.

DEATH

Come back mine eyes

Come back

See the watered washes of paint,

Thin, opaque,

Revealing and veiling forms

Subtle differences of hue, of value,

Of existence?

Of multiplicity?

From rich and complex transparencies

Of sepia and rouge

Fragile and insubstantial,

Light bleeds thru

Transforming ominous cloud like vapors

With a kind of other world tenderness

And compassion.

A shard of light pierces from above

The middle ground glows white

From an unknown source.

Are these perhaps

The signs and promises of renewal?

And what strange correlations cause

Ourselves to stop -

To stop the infernal march of thoughts

And to just see, and feel-

To what unexpected conclusion?

Quietude

Gratitude