When the South Burns

We were witnesses to the history,
marking our presence without names
but with the hundreds of footsteps that stood,
paused, and waited for our wonder to pale,
so we could go home and speak of other things--
to hold conversations that are gaspless,
to make gestures which do not end in our fingers
touching our lips that are
loose in an O--
with no sidelines or sidesteps
to conflagrations that leap from
ancient stone, fumes rising up like
ghosts to dissolve in the city air,
our own breaths making short chases,
as we watched the great gate
give a last orange then gray
sigh.