Josh Bowman is sharing his father’s poetry all week. Today, Victoria State Bush Fires.

Note: this week I am publishing a travel poetry series, all written by my dad. This is his book. Buy it if you like poems (you can also email my dad directly).

Victoria State Bush Fires

Half burned brush painted a terrible picture of explosive fire,

jumping all over without any prediction.

While other communities were inexplicably spared,

Marysville and Kings Lake were destroyed completely.

An unpredictable rage scorched forests on one side of the highway

without touching equally dry brush on the other.

People died trying to do what they had always done,

stay the course and fight a fire they could not understand,

while others roasted in their cars, trying vainly to escape this earthly hell.

Not considering other species, incinerated by circumstances,

nearly 200 human lives were lost due to incomprehensible sacrifice.

Yes, there was an arsonist, but his presence does not explain the total destruction

of so much bountiful plant life by nature, a nature aroused and inflamed

in a passion of horrific disregard towards her planet and its inhabitants.

Image courtesy of Kent Bowman.

To read more travel poems by my dad, check out:

Delaware River Sunrise

Vuvuzela Blues

Salt Boxes

Zen River Memories