The Fires

by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir

The earth envelops me, with all her eons, all her 4.5 billion years. Her weight presses down upon me, steadily and without pity, like the beating of her blazing heart. Laws that spare no one, the dawn of life and its dusk. I am in her power, an insect in her dark, velvety palm.

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the color of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.