by David Alberto Fernández
On the top of the dwarfing mountain
Looking down on a city of salt
That house was a weighted sentinel
bearing down on all of us
A high refuge
Of godlike detachment
An alpine height
for predatory birds
Four score years after they traded
our friends for soot
The orange glow showed
The equanimity of flame
Let the fire
pay its homage to their dwelling
Let the the bitter wind
Receive their handiwork
For all they took from us
Let's leave them what's left there
When fools try to pay tribute
To architects of collapse
Let them taste charred wood
We can best honor them
By forgetting their names,
By giving breath
To their smoldering ruin
And preserving forever
Their monument of ashes
David Alberto Fernández is the poet laureate of the City of Takoma Park, Maryland. He is an Associate Editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, co-founder of the Beltway Café reading series at the MLK Library in Washington DC, and the pop-up poetry art project Vocal Takoma.
