The Site Cleaning—Tunitas Creek
June 3, 1989

Blackened redwoods wept grey mist—
noontime sky—went blank as we pulled in,
juggling brown paper bags of groceries,
stumbling down the charcoal weary bank
of dust past the motley neighbors gathering
shovels, axes, hoes in hand to help.

Charred aviaries now planted in squash,
zinnias, strawberries, blue bandanas —
bent backs of Meg, Maria weeding
inside the wall of blackened wire.
Whir of wings replaced— low, constant
pleading— the child, mother’s rhythmic stall.

Behind cages, scorched cinder tumbled
from the house, studio to disarray the creek.
Among wild iris, clover lay tennis shoes,
dappled tea kettles, grown mossy— sleek
to delight my jaunty daughter and her friend.

They hoisted brick after brick from running water
to the hands of those who stacked them on shore,
piled them in steel buckets to haul in the borrowed
pickup. After water play, girls unearthed treasure,
sifting through heads, arms

Carved in bone— Day of the Dead candelabra, blue, white
chips of hand-painted Italian crockery, shards of red
goblets, splinters of colored paper, torn posters of Irving’s
surrealist paintings. All the while, neighbors hacked remains
of the foundation, removing cement, glass, wood.

Focused on fine debris that needed to be moved, my
friend caught in mourning—his marriage cannot clear
his eyes to see what rises from the ash. Hella will plant
a garden there. A short distance away— a yellow ribbon
wavered, the perimeter of the planned new home.

The short Greek neighbor roasted lamb on a spit,
laid out wine, fruit, salad, bread— called us smoke
and song of early summer. Hella faced rebuilding—
receiving dancing in her eyes as she caressed
a crescent moon against her blue sweater.

Next to her lively and petite, Irving smiled, his painter’s
hands folded and said he was pleased. How peaceful
he looks six weeks after open-heart surgery, wondering
“Why don’t I take better care of myself?” Snowy hair
against a tawny face bespoke a life of work, of art.

“It wasn’t surgery that hurt,” he said, ”but healing. To write
now is like no time in history—to tell what is like to
be alive in the last decade of the twentieth century.”