Sun as Orange

A sun as orange as an orange rose
behind the gray, staggered

limbs of the douglas firs:
fires, fires all the way
from Mt Adams to Lake Chelan.

The radio spoke of particulates
and of vulnerable alveoli in lungs
long used to the rain and the breath of the sea;

there is a smell of campfires
as it lingers in damp sleeping bags,
and thrusting gray fingers of

what would be fog
if this were October: there's a catch
too far back in the throat to unspring.

The world is a vacant church
lit by high stained glass. Tonight
a sun as orange as an orange will set

behind the crumpled hills,
and a gasping bloody moon
will waver in the wind.