1917 Fire: The Wind's Fiery Breath

Lyrics

I woke up restless on May twenty-first.
A stir. A shiver in the oak leaves.
A tug on the laundry lines.
Then I found my voice.

It was just a coal, a careless thought.
Behind a shack at 35 Boulevard.
A little orange eye blinking in the dry grass.
I bent down.
I gave it a kiss.
My breath tasted of pine dust and hot tar.
And I watched it grow a tongue.
And then a hundred.

I am the breath that carries the seed of ruin.
I am the roar that deafens prayer.
I took the embers, glowing like dinner plates,
and I cast them on your shingle roofs.
This is my sermon, my gospel, my fiery breath.
I un-wrote seventy-three blocks of your city.

I leaped over your firebreaks.
I laughed at your dynamite.
A quarter-mile ahead, I was already there.
Planting gardens of flame.
The wood of your homes, your churches, your dreams...
it screamed as it fed me.
Your bucket brigades were just tears against a furnace.

I am the breath that carries the seed of ruin.
I am the roar that deafens prayer.
I took the embers, glowing like dinner plates,
and I cast them on your shingle roofs.
This is my sermon, my gospel, my fiery breath.
I un-wrote seventy-three blocks of your city.

I saw the Jackson Street Viaduct stand, a bone in the fire.
I saw the steel streetcar tracks twist like licorice.
I melted your glass into tears.
And through the smoke, I saw a single porch light still burning.
A stubborn, foolish little star.
I do not hate. I do not choose. I simply am.

Ten thousand of you, sleeping under the sky tonight.
Your city map, a smudged charcoal drawing now.
I am quiet.
My work is done.

For now.