cathedral fires

Well I was feeling a nap coming on,
this coffee has staved it off a bit 
then 
I heard

the news break in on me. Somewhere,
and I know, I've been there - 
a university cathedral burns 
alone in the woods as angels
flame and smoke into ritual
preordained by nature, just super.
Reduced to ash, taking root
to soot in a blazing flash,
in trade for their pains

As the whole thing falls.
I know, 
I can never come back 
at all. Those trees grew up 
ringing round that space 
in obsessively upward stride 
that took always to reach, 
or near as. I am held at bay 

as everything Monterey
burns today. If I could go back 
with a cape, right now I'd dump 
hurricane force rains 
nebulized to a drenching mist
of drizzled deluge that would quench
those ancient and parched throats of bark
to cores that could never again
be singed. Be toast. Be oak 
and ash and yew, and especially 
redwood again like new. 

If I'd ever gone back before now,
I could. But Shakespeare 
will have to find 

new parks,
I guess. And everything else 
gone up 
in a separation of state 
with some cause 
to effect. At best, it's just 
chemical. A lightning strike 
as touched off. Predetermined.

Cool. 

Let's pretend it don't matter, 
then. Or now. Or ever. Or 
ever again,

you fool