WILDFIRE

Mynydd Helygain – Halkyn Mountain – despite

its name is a long, high, flat-topped hill

above the Welsh shore of the Dee Estuary.

Its plateau – with views of: the mountain ranges

of Snowdonia; the Dee and the Mersey;

the Wirral Peninsula; Liverpool

and its hinterland – is ancient commonland

of woods of oak and ash, heaths of gorse

and bracken, and disused lead workings

once exploited by the 20th Legion.

The farmed fields on its slopes today are parched,

flaxen after so many rainless weeks

and unremitting sun. The lagoons

in the estuary’s marshland are drying –

but not its grasses or the stems of its flowers,

which are a vivid, pristine green from its rich muds

with aeons of moisture. And a warm wind

from the north, yes, warm, as breath, fills the air

with the scent of yarrow from the wetlands’ margins.

Suddenly from the hill top dense black smoke

erupts. The wind blows strands south, and another

thick plume appears perhaps a mile away,

whisked rapidly southerly into the sky.

And the land may burn for hours, for weeks.

Here at sea level we can only see the smoke –

but know the flames will soon arrive on our phones:

in the palms of our hands the end of days.