Hospital Rooms and Hell Fire

Lightening split the sky, thunder fell heavy on our ears

The blanket of flame hid behind tall hills and even taller emergency vehicles

Their lights flashing red and white as their sirens screamed that our world was ending

And when the wall of flame clawed its way over the hill and she was still missing, we all prayed for rain.

Her body was a mirror of the desolation they couldn’t describe in headlines

The hills and valleys of her body burned like those of the land she loved,

the land she had called her home, the land she would never go back to.

The sterile smell of latex and burnt hair mixed with the smell of ozone that wafted through her hospital room window,

Promising salvation as it sat in the back of our throats like an unspoken prayer.

But still, the rain wouldn’t come.

Long minutes were measured with the chime of her heart monitor and even longer hours with the growing layer of ash on the windowsill.

Acres burned, homes crumbled, cattle died

And when Heaven answered our prayers at last,

when the rain began sweeping away the flame and kissing the black scar of the earth,

one that was promised to fade with time,

we were reminded that her scars would never be kissed away.

Not with all the rain in the world.