Tag: fire

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

poetry

what it takes to save a town

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Louisville’s Public Works and Utilities team: Chris DePalma, Cory Peterson, Ben Francisco, Greg Venette, Shane Mahan, Tom Czajka, Matt Fromandi, Kurt Kowar, & Jeff Owens. (credit: Louisville’s Public Works and Utilities)

what it takes to save a town

we’re just starting to learn
what extreme acts it took
to keep some homes standing

luckily we missed the terror
of knowing all that night –
especially, how the water nearly ran dry

the public works crew drives back to the plant,
the Superior plant is offline
their generator burned
pumps now not running
which means one town’s water
is fighting for two

telephone poles burning beside them
they need to get more gas to the generators
drive fuel through the flame
miraculously, nothing explodes

so many systems down now
the Louisville crew knows
the only way to learn what water’s left
is to actually climb the tank
and peer down inside the hatch
in hurricane winds
in a firestorm

Jeff goes 20 feet up in the air
crawls on his belly
looks down into the gloom
and it’s worse than he thought
only two feet left

Shane and his crew
accompany the firefighters
house by burning house
shutting each charred ruin’s water off
so precious gallons can’t spew from severed pipes

and in an audacious act
Greg and Kurt decide
they’ll do whatever it takes
to feed those firefighter hoses
even throwing open
the precious pipes they’ve always guarded
to raw untreated water
something they’ve never contemplated
something one would never train for

they work 35 hours straight
putting their courage and ingenuity
on the line for our two towns

and, it works
and,
we’re forever thankful

poetry

Harper Lake Hope

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Harper Lake Hope

sometimes good news comes to greet you
when you hadn’t thought of looking it up for weeks really
hadn’t tried to imagine what it’s been up to
who it’s hanging out with
where it’s living these days

but there it is, right in your path
ready to clap you on the shoulder:
the big cottonwood still stands
its branches filled with stars
its every fiber a witness to these parched days

the flames didn’t even dare to lick its roots
and its whole patch of grass is still a dull January green
not black
and yes, its branches are covered with fat, conical buds

it’s going to keep spreading shade for all of us
drinking in what we belch out
and sending papery hearts out on the wind next fall

even when everything ceases to work
the way you thought it always would
sometimes a small miracle occurs
and wood makes sugar out of sun
and fresh air from our exhausted sighs
and filters glare to green
and we find we’ll still have a place to rest
where wind may slow to a whisper

poetry

instability rules

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instability rules

it may be their first move of several
she patiently explains –
the adjuster figures three months
of smoke remediation
but insurance will only approve
one month’s lodging at a time

so, by the time next month’s okayed
the Airbnb they’re in now
may be booked by someone else
and they’ll have to start all over
all over again

suddenly I see how these displaced children
won’t just be displaced once
families may be shuffled around
for months, or years
for those rebuilding

one thousand households
dwelling in uncertainty

instability rules

poetry

Build a Bedroom / Room Rally / Hope Lives Here

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Cover photo from the Hope Lives Here - Colorado Facebook Group.

Build a Bedroom / Room Rally / Hope Lives Here

Please consider supporting Lindsey McMorran’s Build a Bedroom project by purchasing an item from one of the wish lists she’s assembled for families displaced by the Marshall Fire. Join the Hope Lives Here – Colorado Facebook group to see what needs to be purchased next.

Lindsey’s rebuilding one bedroom at a time
letting kids who’ve had everything taken
dream up the space they’ll dream in next
then granting wish after wish

she hustles after what they’re missing most:
geodes, succulents, a zebra with a bow
she posts the lists, rallies the donors, pulls it together
then bam a kid opens a door to a brand new room

it’s easy to say things are just things
when you’ve still got all your things about you
but sometimes things are symbols or substitutes
standing in for people you’ve lost or days you loved

no, it won’t fill all the gaps, undo all the terror
but it is starting over with a bang
knowing so many care what you love
and wish you sweet dreams again

poetry

facing Harper Lake

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Photo by Chris Hansen of 9 News (KUSA).

facing Harper Lake

today a stranger and I made plans
to face the lake together

we’ve both been round its tame shore
enough times to expect the cottonwood to the south

and the Indian Peaks view to the west
but what we’re not quite prepared for

is what’s left of the homes we saw on TV
sending great jets of ravenous orange flame

into the night, seeming to burn for hours
with a tender couple silhouetted before that wall of fire

we know what a luxury it is
to not have seen it all yet

to not have to deal in the daily minutiae
of Right of Entry forms

and adjusters
(and knowing whether that’s -er or -or)

agents and policies and replacement everythings
rentals and architects and builders and plans –

plans, most of all –
no, we go about our days with the privilege

of not needing to plan much of anything,
able to choose when to face the lake

on our own terms,
a choice that couple never had to make