PLANET BURNING

Once on the slope
of Mount Rainier—
with other children—
I lit a match.

In the space between one
breath
and the next
the newborn flame
began to burn my fingers,
so, without thinking,
I dropped it
into a nest of pine needles
where it crackled, flared,
surged like a fever,
wandered like a river.

Fortunately, we were many.

Five children stamping furiously
and singeing our rubber soles
saved the forest
from ourselves
that day,
but who,
Smokey,
will save us all now?

Leslie Schultz (Northfield, Minnesota) has three collections of poetry: Still Life with Poppies: Elegies; Cloud Song; and Concertina (Kelsay Books) and Larks at Sunrise: Light-Hearted Poems for Dark Times (Green Ginkgo Press). Her poetry has appeared widely, including in Able Muse, Blue Unicorn, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Light,MockingHeart Review, Mezzo Cammin, Naugatuck River Review, North Dakota Quarterly, One Art, Poet Lore, Third Wednesday, The Midwest Quarterly, The Orchards, Tipton Poetry Review, and The Wayfarer; and in the sidewalks of Northfield. She serves as a judge for the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. See more of her work at winonamedia.net.