poetry

poetry

Annie’s Story

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A frame from video of the Marshall Fire evacuation taken by David Zalubowski with the Associated Press. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/30/us/colorado-fires

Annie’s Story

when her 8-year-old son kept saying
I don’t want to die today
she calmly explained
that wouldn’t happen
they were safe
the fire was a long way away
they would leave if it ever got close

a few hours later
trapped in gridlock
with the smoke plumes getting darker
her family split between
different cars and departure times and friends
she’s nearly overcome by the unbearableness of
stasis in the midst of terror
jammed in this long line of sitting ducks
straddling gas tanks

so she asks the traffic control lady
if she’s still going the best way,
and the lady shakes her head and says,
there are a lot of people getting hurt up there
(which later proved to be false,
but then she’d no way to know)

afraid to learn exactly how close the flames are now
she wills herself not to check the messages on her phone
instead she calls her National Guard brother
pleading for him to find her an exit
thinking to herself
I don’t want to die today

but even with his emergency ops experience
and all the info he is calm enough to marshal
all her brother can tell her is stay where she is –
north is the only way

now she says, everyone miraculously safe,
things aren’t the same

sometimes it’s like my nervous system is outside my body
she says
like there is no buffer between the world and me

I will never leave my husband’s side in an emergency again
she says
I wanted us to be together if something happened

I will never wait for an evacuation order again
she says
by the time they order you it’s too late
the roads are packed solid

I’m glad I took my rings
but I didn’t really need my wedding photos –
more of those exist

my main regret is I didn’t grab my grandmother’s box
it goes between my mom and uncles
so they have turns with her memories

my mom had loaned it to me
and I would have let them down
if I’d let it burn

one of the hardest moments was
picking up my daughter from her friend’s.
she asked me if our home was gone
and all I could say was
I don’t know

It wasn’t

I’m one of the lucky ones
and I’m still crying every day

poetry

cultivating hope

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cultivating hope

how to counter
that burned-out feeling
hollowed and cratered
and smoldering sulfur

how to raze the ruins
that’ve laid waste to your acreage
that puff black smoke
with each footfall

where to put the melted
twisted metal detritus
the toxic conglomerate
of how we once lived

how to make space for new ways
when dangerous wreckage
demands all your attention
all your reserves

each day there’s too much to do
to corral devastation
too much at risk
all the stakes are too high

the earth is too frozen
to lay our backs to this January
we can’t breathe in green warmth
and fall up into sky

but, it’s going to take more than just rage
and more than demands
more than a reckoning
and not less than love

how else can we cultivate
a new way of being
besides sowing/sewing it
singing it joyfully

believing audaciously
daring to hope

pushing our tired hands
deep into scarred soil
not giving up
until something green grows

poetry

twice the bang for my buck

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twice the bang for my buck

for one year
I’ve been reading Howard Zinn with friends
slogging through endless accounts
of the machine’s extreme indifference
grappling with the incalculable odds anyone is up against
when demanding decency
getting schooled in
the countless pretenses for war

it’s been a hard go
but here’s what I’ve gathered:
oppose war always
support unions unequivocally
demand accountability
take care of one another
hope is all we have

today the United Food and Commercial Workers
International Union Local 7
sent my donated Hardship money back
saying since the strike was short and sweet
they don’t need it after all
but, since I managed to part with it once,
they invite the 850 of us who gave
$55,000 total
to send those dollars right back out again
to others in need

I tear up and grin when I read this –
this is how Zinn and I believe
we are supposed to live:
taking what we need
giving back the rest
helping someone else
when our ledger’s in the black

I surely don’t do enough
keep way too much for my hypothetical rainy day
but this time I’m so glad
to let this money work its magic twice

now these ones and zeroes are snaking
their way through cyberspace
ready to be a drop in the bucket
a Marshall Fire survivor needs

poetry

unearned credit

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unearned credit

having our house appraised
for the lender
for the cash-out refi
for the long-planned cabin
for wildness

there is the unspoken uncomfortable knowledge
that according to the rules of economics
and the inverse relationship between supply and demand
and the current state of things
all indications are that I will personally benefit
financially though certainly not psychologically
from enormous loss

another privilege I am uncertain
how to go about offsetting

another roll of the dice
with profound implications
I can take no credit for

poetry

Krista Reinoceroferous and the Stone Cold Sober Dog

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Corey Bee's trousers.

Krista Reinoceroferous and the Stone Cold Sober Dog

This poem is inspired by Krista’s post to the 80027 – OhOh27 – The Original OhOh27 Facebook group inviting folks to share their silly (and sweet) stories about what they grabbed while evacuating from the Marshall Fire. Photos by Corey Bee and Joanna Cagan.

Krista invites us to laugh
at our terror-fogged brains
and we do, and go limp with relief

we giggle at all the truly odd odds and ends
that made it into our evacuating cars
and the essentials that unaccountably didn’t

first, the treasured foods:
cherry pie and sumo oranges
a pot of hot soup on a lap in gridlock for hours
and the vegan family’s subsistence bean dip
the frozen pizzas from Chicago
and the precious stored breastmilk
(which every pumping mother totally gets)
and the Brits’ Marmite and the Aussies’ Vegamite
all spared to nurture our senses of humor now

then, the impractical wardrobe essentials:
the cherry red crushed velvet bell bottoms
the toddler’s cast and the single sneaker
lots of uncomfortable bras packed by hopeful husbands
and a surprising quantity of skis and swimsuits

there are the touching tokens of responsibility:
the friend’s borrowed thesis
and tons of library books
the holiday reading log and the science project
the ashes of people and pets not keen on being cremated twice
spare tires and Covid cards
and a healthy number of work computers
intentionally left in the fire’s path
(work-life balance…)

my favorites are the truly inexplicable
like the cowbell or the stapler
the kitchen knives or the TV remote
and especially the Nicki Minaj votive candle

we keep reading not just to laugh
but to be there with all these sweet frantic hurting humans
to treasure that single castle drawing left from years of childhood
to comfort the couple worried about the candle on the Sagamore coffee table
to listen to both sides of the argument
about whether the firebox should have been allowed to fulfill its destiny
to root for the playing of those Beatles 45s someday

we’re all so delightfully flawed
fallible and irrational
quirky and lovable
and so very in need of a good laugh these days
so thankful for the vulnerability and care
and not-taking-oneself-too-seriously in the 0027
and so very proud of each person
who crammed a goat in their Honda Pilot that day
(or the equivalent)

poetry

the library, during the pandemic, post-fire

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the library, in the pandemic, post-fire

at the library:
free masks in lunch bags
a sign that says
offer a message of hope
(or something like that)
along with cut-out hearts,
markers, paperclips,
and a string strung with
love and good wishes.

all the books we’re looking for are here.
all 3 Cedar wants are in the Teen section.
on our way up I ask
if he’s been in there before.

once, when Owen was registering
for the Summer Reading Program
he says.
this, then, is a rite of passage.

we enter and it turns out
he knows just about all the kids at the computers.
yes, this is his zone now.

it’s not like the old days –
we hustle in and out
the water fountains are padlocked
the librarians are behind sneeze guards
and there are no more golf pencils and slips of paper
to jot down Dewey Decimals.

but it is like the old days, too –
a warm place where we take care of one another
and believe anything is possible.
the first heart on the line reads
thank you for welcoming us in
and giving us somewhere to be
(or something like that).
it’s still a home away from home,
which is especially welcome
when your home is no more.

poetry

buying cold

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buying cold

she tells me doubtfully
it’s pretty dark
it’s back in the trees
that area holds onto snow
I grin

she suggests a different place
now this place over here –
this one’s sunny and bright
dry (but windy)
it melts out a lot earlier

I explain patiently
we’re looking for a little refrigerator
where we can escape the Plains
cold and wet is what we want

a place where all the PurpleAir disks glow green
where snow is measured in feet
where water sits right below the surface
ready to douse a spark

where the aspen are plump with sap
and the spring’s gushing never slows
a place to counter glare and ash and salmon skies
numb to the mercury’s fever

poetry

subterranean flame

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Photo from the "Walking through History at Marshall Mesa" brochure by Joanna Sampson for the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Department.

subterranean flame

what if no one started it?
no one to blame
or hate
or punish

what if it breathed itself into being?
one long exhale from those Carboniferous bogs
the tip of its red tongue
flicking out to meet
bleached brittle grasses
already given over to drought

what if it wasn’t even fire that grew flame?
but rather the charged static
of this paused and polarized time
the dead air crackling
with our unmet needs

maybe it wasn’t you or me or them
who lit the first match
maybe the very air combusted

poetry

catalog of irreplaceable losses

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catalog of irreplaceable losses

my husband and I discuss
what we’d wish to take from our home
if we had time:

our children
our dog
our bird

wallets, coats, hats, gloves, shoes
(practical for immediate survival)

the mini photo albums we’ve made each year
since our children were born

our boxes of letters

the framed photos in our hallway
(some exist nowhere else)

my journals

our Christmas stockings
(all handmade)

the quilts Amma stitched for the boys

the original artwork we own

Grammy’s viola

Owen’s bass clarinet

the box of heirloom family baby clothes

these are the things for which there’d be no substitute
it seems to us

(our photos were scanned years ago –
the cloud cuts our losses so much these days)

but the truth is
we’ve been through three fires between us
and barely saved a thing

when he was in high school,
in the Black Tiger Fire in 1989,
Alex fled his Betasso home with a neighbor –
doesn’t recall taking anything at all

I was home alone for the other two:
a chimney fire in Nederland
around 1997

and our Louisville home was struck by lightning
around 2003
and a bit of the attic burned

all three were before cell phones
(for us)
and both times I called 911
then ran out of the house

in Louisville I put the dogs in the cottage
then changed my mind,
and brought them to the car

both times I stood out front
waited for sirens
then decided to run back in for my coat
(and hat and gloves and scarf in Ned)

stood out front again
then thought about my purse
ran back in and grabbed that, too
then met the firefighters

in Ned I was embarrassed when they asked
if I’d closed the vent
and I had to say no,
chagrined I hadn’t even thought to starve the flames

but that’s all the getting I ever did –
not even the box of important documents –
and I feel no shame in that;
there simply was no time

so why make this list now
when there’s so little chance we’d ever
have the luxury of checking it?

it’s a way to acknowledge
to our friends and ancestors
what they’ve entrusted us with
that we feel most responsible for –
what we’d be most gutted to lose

poetry

Learning about the Marshall Fire

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My sister took this photo from her home on LaFarge Avenue shortly before evacuating.

This is in response to a prompt by Peter Rousmaniere, who is coordinating a project about the Marshall Fire involving local writers and photographers. He suggests, “Write down how you learned on December 30, what you did, and what were your very initial thoughts. Try to recall the details, for with details we often store in memory our emotions.” If you’d like to participate, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/cdD4q1bMyhTkgzgo8. I have posted this photo before, but it is exactly how I learned about the fire.

Learning about the Marshall Fire

the news reached me vacationing in Fairplay
as a text from my sister who lives three blocks from us
a photo of the grey view from her Old Town upstairs
complaining about the smoke saying two fires were burning

too thick to be distant
but too deep into winter to seem threatening
and there not being much else to do in our cabin
I checked the Daily Camera website to see what I could learn

a grass fire in Marshall, fairly unremarkable
until I saw the single line that meant things weren’t okay:
Superior also released a statement
calling for all residents to be evacuated.

(our border is somewhat arbitrary
I’d thought Highway 36 until earlier this fall
when my booster shot appointment at the “Louisville” Walgreens
on McCaslin proved to have a Superior address)

I sent my sister a screenshot
and she texted back What?!?!
I went on Facebook and then Twitter
and found homes had begun to burn

when I saw the post of burning shrubs
at Via Appia and McCaslin
flames already uncomfortably close to Old Town
I called her and said I think you need to leave

How am I supposed to do that? she asked
meaning escape with toddler and four-year old and skittish dog
meaning grab some essentials and safely hustle into the car
meaning manage all the meltdowns and figure out where to go

There are flames at Via Appia and McCaslin
I repeated urgently
you need to get in the car and go.
Come to us in Fairplay, but get out now.

She called from the stalled traffic
and I tried not to think of flames advancing
warned her don’t go west
and 93 is closed

I didn’t take a deep breath until she was safely in Boulder
and then turned my attention to our three Louisville homes:
hers, my mom’s, and ours.
it wasn’t until the next day we learned that all three still stood