spewing strangling gas
red white vapor paints green grass gray.
unlovely lava flows – entrails of eviscerated Earth –
that true when cool replenish tired soils.
and also true his indigestion soothed by some poison belch –
by gravity’s hand sculpts the quieted cone into a shape most grand.
Still, I pity.
We misunderstand the flaming ash hole.
We fear. We blame.
When it is the foul deep,
Hades black bile,
that forces its stench upward,
ripping open his closed throat to spray
things unwelcome here.
Eruptions set his head afire.
He stands singly, wearily awaiting the next assault, wearing hermit’s dread.
Who will cool the dragon heart? And when?