Sparks Fly Upward

— Minnie Bruce Pratt
from Inside the Money Machine

On the way to work, I’m given a ratchety
static of rain hitting cement and the roadway.
Going home, against the dark screen of sky,
I see the trees blazing up in their dying,
their fallen leaves making a carpet of sparks.
If I could jump into their bonfire! If I
could fall headlong into that brief glory.
Dying and coming back is what trees
promise us—coming back as ourselves,
arms spread, the sun pulling life up
through our veins, so we play a new song
on our xylem xylophone. But, drinking
coffee at Sparky’s, I read that the newspaper
Reverend Graham says reincarnation is not
the answer. No—evolution is. I don’t fear
my imperfections or punishment after death.
It’s that I don’t want to be done with this joy,
matter striking consciousness, making
the thoughts and words that fly out to find
you. How we yearn to stay alive long enough
to find out what happens next. We burn to do
even as time’s conflagration is consuming us.
The walk is littered with red leaves scorched
with brown, still veined with green. That’s us,
scattered on the ground for who comes next.