And I stood on the mountain 
in the night and I watched it burn…
	—Bill Danoff/Emmy Lou Harris, “Boulder to Birmingham”

Smoke and a demon moon, 
pines crackling as wind roared through. 

You were gone, and every song 
pulled toward earth, a wailing and a moan. 

Here on the mountain I gazed down 
at a carpet of flame. 

Above the haze, a river of stars, 
and all around me the terrible heat. 

When I awoke, there was a patter of rain, 
puddles on slick cement.

The river birch was bare again, 
and crows gathered for their council. 

Their decision would be final,
I knew that as well as my own name. 

All I could do was rub my eyes and wait 
for the spinning world to settle and slow.

                        

A year spent in artificial intelligence is 
enough to make one believe in God.
	—Alan Perlis

In the morning, they fix toilets, work on cars. 
Later they gather at cafes near Nightshade Lane, 
where they stare at tiny espressos. 
They don’t drink, but speak in clicks, or flashes of light, 
or pulses from the spectrum’s outer edge.
You would almost think they had souls, 
the way they look so mournful as the sun goes down. 
Nobody ever sees them write, but every day 
each carries at least one poem - a sonnet or haiku, 
sometimes an elegy, sometimes a praise song, 
burned into mirror-like screens.
I have seen them string together pages of verse,
palms flattened one above the other  
like in the old children’s game. 
My mother asked one once, 
when I took her there for coffee, are you happy? 
The robot turned away and whispered to the shadows. 
We took our cups to a table in the back, while the poets 
bent over, quite without pain, and began to polish the floor.