During the summer of fire

During the summer of fire I slept beneath the madrone at my grandmother’s house, herself long gone, but the evening breeze carried the sorrow of smoke, and the sky was bathed an amber light. The moon, a raging red eye seeking water. The coyotes didn’t know whether to howl or to bark. And the young horned owls, still working on their slow solos, had trouble counting the notes. The stars, a distant memory. Their light occluded by the veil of smoke, the death knell of dying trees.