in smoke and ashes, we keen
at the feet of the largest funeral pyre
that we have ever seen
counting the bodies in
the number of limbs fallen in between
charred, scarred
as if to remind us
of how alive they have always been

and until then, we had complained
the loss of something we have always felt
was in our right to contain
but sitting a midst our "domain"
counting acre by acre
and then mile by mile
as the flames reclaimed
what has always been theirs to take

and in a fortnight we awoke
and it was silence like it had never broke
and the mountains, as far as we could see
wrapped in black cloak
but it was us
who felt like we'd been choked
and not for smoke
because we could finally see what we had done

so in our grief, we gathered in the street
to greet our proclaimed heroes
and make a victory of our defeat
thankful for salvation from the heat
that blazed up in our face
a uncomfortable reminder
our of dominion incomplete