As the fire season ramps up and PG and E threatens to turn off the power to thousands of homes to help prevent them, and to keep themselves from liability, I am remembering last year's devastating Camp Fire in Paradise California. Students at Butte College and WordSpring Press put out a beautiful anthology of fire poems. I was pleased to have three poems and one photo included, and got to read there, with many others, some of them fire survivors in a very moving evening. Here are my three poems and the photos. Pelicans in a red sky over the San Francisco Bay.
Fire
and Fury
We measure our days in smoke
Fires raging to the north of us
The south of us, the east
Particulate matter in the nose
The mouth
The lungs
The dreams of ash which overwhelm
our dreams of sleep
We measure our days in embers
from a thousand cigarettes,
phlegm from lungs greedily inhaling
Years piled up in mounds
of butts, heaps
of burning tires, rivers on fire
We measure our days in red running
heat
pouring down suburban streets
Molten cars, homes, bodies, dreams
disrupted, blistered
The last residents of Pompeii
We measure our days in waves from
above
pressing down the sky,
from below threatening the shore
Sunset orange with rhetoric
Polemic spewed by angry gods
Skies of pink fill the sailor’s
heart
with visions
of bloated fish bellies floating
Chemical rivers
Plastic oceans
We now measure our days
in credible fear
of sear and flash
the mushroom blast
the last thing you hear
softly falling ash
President
Pleasure Visits California*
Says
from the steps of Air Force One:
It really is a pleasure
to join you here
in Pleasure -
Look! They named a town after me!
A real pleasure, if Pleasure hadn’t
burned to the ground
a shame
so sad
Can you get it built back up by my
next trip?
So you won’t be embarrassed by all
the mess?
My namesake, Pleasure, yes a real
shame
Where’s that governor?
Where’s Jerry?
And Gavin, he’s the new Governor
you know
You folks who live here in Pleasure
really need
to get going with the rakes
like the Fins, now there are some
smart people
No burned down towns on their watch
They know how to manage a forest
Cold place Finland
So not sure how much pleasure
And they have reindeers; did you
know that
Governor?
Like Santa, so that’s got to be fun
Here, let me give you a hug Gavin,
spread
some Pleasure around
Feels good to help out
Remember, get out the rakes,
and maybe some snow, you ought to
get some snow
Cover it all up; make it look good,
you know
in the meantime
Well, it’s been a pleasure
Ha ha, get it?
Oh, and sorry about all the dead
people
and what not, not good
Rakes, that’ll work
I like a great climate
Good to have this little chat
*Trump
visited the town of Paradise California ground zero of the massive northern
California wildfires that killed dozens and left thousands homeless. He got the
name of the town wrong twice before being corrected by a member of the press.
Me with the Face of a Dog
Snug
in white breathing mask
nose
jutting out into the air
the
way a dog’s does
Inquisitive
Anxious
Alert
Though
all I smell is the inside of this dog face
A
chemical smell
Protection
from
invading particularity that began
as
trees
or
the redwood siding on someone’s house
Maybe
a couch
A
rug
An
old dog kennel from behind the garage
Maybe
an old dog
or
other carbon-based being
drifting
200 miles
south
to attack my nose
This
coated face with the nose of
a
dog, the snub nosed kind,
a
pug
a
shih Tzu
or
Pekinese
Someone’s
pet now ashes
in
the air
Someone
Ashes
Turning
the sky to fire
The
ocean to blood
The
once warm earth
Cold
as a grave
Some,
they say, were saved
in
swimming pools
or
ponds
rivers,
under the hose
Others
tried and failed
their
cars still out front
of
what’s left of the house
Their
cremation
no
longer necessary
Ashes
to ashes
Mud
How
we will all wind up
someday
perhaps
filtered for purity
through
a white mask
covering
the large-pored nose
of
a god or goddess,
inconsequential
deity
with
the face of a dog
aloft
in a red sky
clouded
with dust
while
stars are born
in
some other part
of
the universe
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