Hover you hummingbirds,
frozen like moments,
show me your ruby and emerald throats. 
Blink owl and awake;
bring with you the hawk who stares straight at the sun. 
Call carrion-eating buzzards from the North
and fish-catching herons from the southern estuaries.
Let the canary beat against the cage. 
Come also blue-bellied lizards
who left tails in children's grabbing hands,
and frogs who hopped out of dishes on brand-new legs,
leaving tadpole brothers to die when the water evaporated. 
Hear me, black roach, silverfish, red ant and pale devouring moth. 
Avenge yourselves on generations of pest-poisoners.
The Santa Ana wind blows sparks
at Nuestra Reina de Los Angeles.
It will be a new Pompeii,
I promise you,
as the development tracts burn,
and white ash settles over
the twisting streets of the hill suburbs,
the right-angled streets of the lowland senior citizens' communities,
the Mexican streets of Venice the second Guadalajara,
and the painted streets of Hollywood. 
We will run to the hills as the city convulses
till the bees alone
remain over it humming. 
Only when the red-hot rubble
fades again to gray
will we go down
and make
another country