I
From my first memory to the fourth grade
I lived under the sun of constant summer.
Lemon trees to climb. Books. Bedtimes.
Riding tricycles on islands: Coronado and Oahu.
We left the West, all of it,
in a van, friendless, for Virginia.
Our stuff boxed and sent ahead.
California's last sunset a fire on the sea.
I stare at stars through the back glass
tightpacked enough to cast a shadow.
Hearing only engine and road hum.
Lulled, until all is awash in another light.
I am not frightened of the house on fire.
Windows pour flames upwards.
A few silhouette men watching.
No firetrucks. Just the whole house burning,
and them on the street, and us slowly
passing, witnessing, an awe at the thing.
More fire, fountains of it, washing out
starlight from the sky and anything other
than fire and witnesses from behind my eyes.
We passed on the right: a good omen.
A burnt offering to some power
fed all their furnishings, photographs, socks
burning linens, boardgames, bras,
all anchors and fastenings made bright light
then ash. Whatever they are caught
up in over. All comforts also:
the porch at night, kitchen table, couch.
Ruined and free, fire quit them
of the shackles and shelter they had.
Left them all naked of things.
II
Woody Guthrie's house went up.
His mother lit it. Mad, later
she would burn his sister.
And these only half of them:
his father had yet to survive somehow
his mother's match and kerosene
and his daughter die, burnt
in the apartment on Mermaid Avenue.
How he sang anything but bitterness,
or held his heart open to anyone,
or warmed himself at any hearth,
ever lit a candle or cigarette
or sang “you're so pretty
you'd make any mountain quiver
make hot fire fly from the hard rock..."
Passion a flame even for him.
Primitive to his pain and loss
the bright light that eats to ash
all its fed, and love a fire
too, and we aflame with it.
III
We answer the carcrash with candlelight
vigils. A quiet crowd with votives.
Cheap little lights and some company,
some comfort and then we snuff out
the little symbols of ourselves
and bear away the cooling dead.
We walk our children into the woods
having forgotten nearly all we knew:
red oak from white oak, laurel from ash.
These birdsongs blurring together
as we carry coolers of cold drinks
and the small bundle of split wood
bought from the boy at the gate.
We fuss with snacks until sunset
then laboriously light the campfire
we came here, really, to witness.
To sit a few times in our lives
in a dark, uncomprehended wood
within a ring of firelight.
