# [Signal] Fire
**by Liza Wolff-Francis**

[I am] one of the burning hillside trees.
[Fire] jumps from leaves to bark.
My arm and torso break. I am [fractured]
and still, I love the [Earth] I am from.

[Cosmic] night shape-shifts me
into a hot crunch of [embers].
When fire is gone, coals still [burn]
through to [the core] of the Earth I am from.

Come morning, I sing the [sad]dest notes
from what [remains] of this Earth I am from.
My trunk no longer [stretch]es to sky.
Its blackened stalk [tremble]s even in still air.

My voice calls the breeze to [reach] me,
though that same [air] pushed me to my knees
before it brought my death. I beg [for] it
to give [me] wholly to the burnt Earth I am from.

[Charred] trunk, ashen limbs, burnt hollows
my singed [tongue] creaks, new flowers grow
at my edges. This is the time for [a rebirth]
[for the Earth] I am from.