Heather

The glow of heather is not, as Yeats said,
Purple, that which mimics a childhood noon.
It sits not idly by painted cottages or ripening corn,
nor does it ramble by pleasant creeks.

heather now is a featherless peacock,
Shorn of her crown, habitat, and glory.
She sits mutely on tame suburban porches,
Or obliterated, shivering in the remains of scorched forests.

I yearn to see heather as a purple glow,
To be able to reach back, and breathe
in the possibility of memory, and hope.

but the air carries only the scent of ash-
and our noons are a blotted orange.
The world is on fire,
and childhoods are no more.

By Yuna Kang

Biography:

Yuna Kang is a queer, Korean-American writer based in Northern California who writes both poetry and short stories. She is pronoun indifferent, with her most popular pronouns being from the she and they series. When she is not writing, she is probably reading and trying out different kinds of tea. She lives in Berkeley, California, where she attends school at UC Berkeley.