setting fire to slippery slopes

He left for the hills the night of a thousand lights

As the families stood in the streets

Rooted like vegetables ripe for the harvest

It was like a bad movie, he lacked the recognition

An ocular strain as the road lengthened then expanded

To the point of fruition and the lights loomed with expectation

Growing, colliding and sparking as they neared

And the people stared with abject intrepidity

Resigned to their fate

He ran, alone through the ranks

Climbing scrub and scree

Slipping, tripping, dripping in fear

As the thousand lights or more bombarded town

And rushed in, a hot knife through butter

A match to kindling, tinder to smoke, smoke to dust

He neared the summit as the lights neared

Parting the terrain, laying waste to the crackling

And it grew, rushing upward in a chimney gust

And it grew, the soot, encapsulating his post

While he watched them pass

Growing silent in the dark,

A spark on the horizon, then nothing

But heat as  flames gain the peak