The 2020 Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Sunrise

Question: Spirit of fire? How
does dry lightning affect your

Vision? What terror unfolds
between midnight and dawn?

Answer:
At sunrise, my body burns.
What once was verdant,

Sizzles, falls, and chokes
even over distant reaches

Of the newly jaundiced sun
whose beauty is now sullied,

Thwarted by unending heat.
Hissing as tree tongues roll,

Black and orange leaping
mile after mile. The canyons

And the ruddy, wooded hills
crackle in hot vengeance,

Hastening towards the sea
what has begun as smoke.

Morning

Question:
Why does Your smoke explode
into wind, flames, and ash?

Why use Your breath to deprive
the trees and grasses of thirst

To morning’s brutal end?

Answer:
What has begun as smoke —
My sacrificial soaring spirals

Transform into undulating flames
sweeping the bristling brush

Into glowing cinder then hot ash
swirling hot air into my breath.

My wind reeling — at a livid pace
with devastation certain to

Erase dry dusty grasses longing
to sip in my once golden fields

Red parchment of cinders is left
along with shadows in burnt trees.

Sometimes swaying, then standing still,
Ragged, weary, snagged by awe.

Noon

Question:
Where does your body go
with the trees and branches
to get a drink?

How does beauty survive?

Answer:
Ragged, snagged by wonder,
madrones stripped of foliage

Singed, desperation is in reach,
bare branches mingling red, blue

Forks ascending, dancing in ash.
Awe is made from and returned to

Fertilizing measures of sweet fragility
fizzled in full light—the forest floor

Interlocking in the rhythm of creation,
its wizened mate transcending all.

In beauty, it begins what never ends.
The breathless wait to find what the

spark of life ignites, what it quenches.

Sunset

Question:
Where in your spirit body lies
the endgame of refugees of fire? How

Will water keep the forest’s body alive?
Will kelp survive, much less feed soils?

Answer:
Sky orange, diving with the pelican,
the once gentle waves descend

Into sea’s silent depths, sudden
dusk swallows each tiny particle.

Gold dust burns until it levitates,
shapes the sway, whirls above

The road of glory smoked in citron
against the rugged cliff whose steep

Blackness stands staunch, shadows
that sharp speed, stopped still forever

So a craven awkward beak can
lunge into the charcoal scented

Tide where sustenance finds wings,
in the night flame, and fiery branches.