The sun’s pink spears
the volcano’s skinny
trees. Punishing magma carves

rock, melts palmettos, boils ocean. 
Tongues of lava, like pistons,
lap up slope and apron. The caldera

appears wide-mouthed and smoking. 
Galapagos hawks fly through ash plumes
toward coastal banks where they will perch

on cacti.  The morning’s fluorescents
court grass fires: archipelago sinking.