Quebec forest fires, 2023
by Markus Poetzsch
Quebec forest fires, 2023
by Markus Poetzsch
when everything is fuel
do proper names burn
as well as what they name?
is PM2.5 the remnant murmur
of Mistissini and Chibougamau,
Kitcisakik and Senneterre,
their sonorous woods and groves
of black spruce , fir, and aspen
sent abroad in muffling
clouds of ash?
or are we to imagine
that some unblighted trace
of what has been consumed
will yet germinate
in the moist seedbed of our lungs,
and bloom at last as vowel music
when all the world is finally on fire?Markus Poetzsch is an Associate Professor of English at Wilfrid Laurier University. He specializes in Romantic literature and has published books and articles on the Wordsworths, Coleridge, John Clare, Leigh Hunt, Thomas De Quincey and Henry David Thoreau. He is interested in the intersections between ecocriticism and the life of faith. Periodically, he also writes poetry and has had his work published in The Dalhousie Review, Ekstasis, and The Clayjar Review.
