Fire Blanket Bog

In this summer of scorch
the air I taste. I smell,
is flaming, smoking trees tinged
with the burning rubber
of pine tar. Deer are restless, snorting
and stamping in the thick haze, a haze
red inside the box that turns the sun orange-
ious gray. It is now

I wish to be a Jenny Greenteeth
living deep under the cool
of a pond or a Peg Powler lurking
in a bog-lined lake.  I wish to spread
my too-long fingers tipped
with jagged claws into the thick
moss, have it bubble up
and suck the smoke-filled air
into itself, pulling it down
through microscopic fronds
that snag the haze, the smoke,
and soak them deep past centuries,
make them disappear.

I would spread my swamp, my
blanket bog, into the sky, light
bog-candles, burst out cattails and lady
slippers, spread cranberry, duckweed
and algae, then pull it all close
like any other unwary traveler caught
in my arms, dragging everything
impure into the Sphagnum, the death
that does not decay, so that
it might be cleansed, the smoke
trapped and rendered inert.

It is then I would flash
the sharp teeth of my smile
and dive back into
the welcoming wet.

Artist’s statement

I have always been attracted to liminal spaces and liminal women in folklore. As wildfires become abundant and commonplace I wondered what these ladies would do. Bogs and marshes hold more carbon than forests or kelp. They are not wastelands, they are vital to the living planet and I think their spirits are angry at what humans have done to the world.