To The Poet On The Island Of Fire Marshals

[to Ray Bradbury]

it will not be you that is burning down

no matter how insistent the rap at the door.

it will not be you

though the ashes curl around your feet;

though the flame licks the skylines

of a destination city somewhere in Space

with multiple horizons.

slick as a brochure.

we won't be paving over

the ones who have gone before you.

here, to make way.

you wouldn't have it any other way.

there is for you, a kind of keepsake

someone called the Soul;

someone to whom there is no monument, finally- 

go where there are no sirens then.

where they won't find you with their

withered flower arrangements.

where there is no grave.

peeled back from the embers

as you turned to go the last of the

snow inscriptions glowed:

to you, on the island of fire marshals

I write with hope

that the poetry lodged in you

does not need a safe,

an executor,

a yellow helmeted friend.

ignore the rapping.

plug the exits with snow

of a winter everywhere descending.

quenching the serene high interrupters

ticking you off the rolls

mary angela douglas 28 may 2014;rev. 14 june 2014

Note on the poem: This poem can be treated kindly (I hope) as a mere footnote, variation on Ray Bradbury's masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451, the one he wanted most to be remembered by.  It is another elegy for him.  I can't seem to stop writing them.  And I know I'm just one of many in that regard.