© Jon Herman

I wrote this many years ago after an extremely hot week working on wilderness trails.

In dismay,
I look up,
Look up to the sky,
That infinite blue,
Where the burning light from skyward descends,
As into the vastness the blistering orb ascends,
The great blazing star,
The furious glowing face in the sky,
The Star from Hell.

It crackles its way to Noontide,
And grows stronger by the minute,
Like a cosmic heat lamp,
It bakes my brains,
Brakes my bains,
Bainks my brins.
Uh oh.
Oh no.
Oh shit.

Blistering,
Simmering,
Blasting bombardment of brilliant photons,
Shatters the water into blinding fragments of shimmering light.
Light that blasts its way to the back of my skull.
Light that coats my reddening skin with glowing heat;
That wrings water from my tortured cells,
And lights up my innards,
Until . . .

Until I’m like an egg in a skillet,
A drop of water on fresh lava,
A snowball in hell,
So some chance I got now,
Under that nuclear ball of heavenly fire.

Oh HellStar,
I whimper,
I cower,
I plead, beg and complain as you burn onward,
Onward across the washed-out blue sky,
Hot to trot,
Toward the remote snowy peaks.

Undiminished,
Unbearable,
Uncaring,
HellStar.

As the rolling Earth carries me away,
Away from your fury,
I wish you good riddance,
For soon,
Soon,
The night will kick your ass.