I promised you a lot of poems, and so I must deliver :) Here’s a new one! Several years back, there were really bad brush fires where I lived. For no apparent reason, I thought of them and had to write this poem.
I am a sentinel at the second-floor window
watching the amber tongues lick the dry brush,
watching the SoCal sky turn to grey
as classmates become refugees,
as California’s paradise turns to hell,
and somewhere out there is my Dad.
Warriors clad in neon armor,
soldiers armed with fabric hose,
armored tanks with flashing, shrieking lights,
and somewhere out there is my Dad
joining the ranks of freedom fighters.
The peoples’ guardians try to cage
the phoenix with hydrants and helicopters.
School’s canceled for a snow day:
Dry grey snow, confetti ash snow,
choke-you-till-you-feel-sick snow.
The air tastes like a thousand fears,
the taste that out there is my Dad.
We’ve tried to tame this wild beast,
turn wasteland into Eden,
so now the canyon shakes its mane,
stamps its hoofs, and snorts in rage
and mocks our little teeny lives
by turning the sun sickly red—
and somewhere out there is my Dad.
When the dragon once more falls asleep,
the army retreats in weary victory,
the refugees pick their ways back home
and we try to forget the hanging threat.
But first I say a prayer of thanks
to the fire’s mighty Lord,
to the Lord of refugees and helpless little girls,
because though out there the battle raged,
now here, back at home is my Dad.