NCAR Fire after Record Snow
another day spent tasting the air for smoke
checking in on friends
body twitching with fight or flight
and this after months of snow
more snow than we could dare dream of
still never enough to damp down the threat of flame
it’s all year now
it’s every elevation
it’s a whole new level
of never-safe
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
after the evacuation order’s lifted
when you first arrive home
after the town caught fire
things will look the same:
soft slabs of snow will mushroom
atop parked car roofs
and Christmas lights will still wrap trees
it’s not until you reach your kitchen
that the full import meets you –
your home still stands, thank God
and the firefighters and Aeolus –
and it stands at 45 degrees and falling.
one of you starts the pellet stove
while the other takes the truck to find more pellets
and free space heaters
and you quietly begin living a new way.
next you look at the gas stove (impotent)
and realize you haven’t means to boil water
and can’t drink what’s in the tap
so you forage for water, too, life stripped to its elements,
five-gallon jugs filled by a friend
in the next town west, where taps magically still flow clean
and now you learn to pour liter carafes
and even dainty cups after a day’s practice
from what’s usually your campsite stash.
when the large men clomp inside
in their Carhartts and work boots
big beards and cold toes
and give you back warm nights
and hot water, you push gifts into
their wide palms: candy canes and
chocolate bars, gushing thanks, and beer,
and it turns out one lives two blocks away
and his toddler and your little neighbor are friends.
and in the midst of all this confusion
so many new ways of doing/being
there’s also the dark knowledge
that your son’s kindergarten teacher’s home
is now just another smoldering pit
and your dog’s brother now has no yard to call his own,
and 500 neighbors don’t have these inconveniences
of gas and water to deal with now
because everything is gone
New Year’s Eve after the Marshall Fire
when the only air to breathe
is so cold it burns your lungs
it, too, feeds your cells
in these the days of emergencies
of Plan B or C or D
or abandoning all plans
and surrendering to survival
let us remember
what a gift it is to have cold crystals
descend upon us
what a miracle that waves of fire
and whispers of snow
exist
safe
this is the safe time
everyone snuggled in their beds
minds easy
in our cheerful cabin
at the end of the plowed road
we go unmasked
rambling around the hills
confident in our isolation
things are mostly black-and-white
in such a small world
we have already put the pieces together
in a way that spells out
safe
but soon
the closed roads will open
the drifts will melt
appointments will be made and kept
the wide world will beckon
and the confusion of a thousand choices
will return –
our life of too many options
for right now
I’m going to luxuriate
in this small quiet safeness
throw myself down
and make snow angels in it even
press my whole body into its
cold near-certainty
before brushing myself off
and steeling for the next wave
snowsmoke
in the white woods
veils of snowsmoke
descend like drapes
unfurling from conifer crowns
cascading with a flourish and fizz
that sets the whole atmosphere asparkle
heightens the drama
anywhere you look
a cloud of crystals
may breathe down your neck
the very next moment
magical shimmer
and cold uncomfortable reality –
that’s how it is these days –
you gotta find a way
to make room for both
snow bombs
sometimes you hear the womp
of a pile of plush snow
plunging from the treetops
down onto a deep drift first
other times a curtain
of sifted snow waves across the sky
like a veil between the trees
every time I look for the chickaree
or chickadee who precipitated it
there’s nothing
it seems the work of snow spirits
walkers on the wind
beings keeping watch over us
who we can only know
by what else they move
snow ghosts sneezing up
soft clouds of hushed white debris
waiting for snow
all day
that tingle of anticipation
getting things done
while they still can be
groceries bought
wood split
sun basked in
walk taken
now all that’s left
is for the wind to shift
clouds to fuzz the sky
and the slow white moths
to begin to tuft the trees
we’re waiting for permission
to withdraw from the world
Uncertain Love Poem
Today I am falling in love with snow falling –
air moving water from one basin to the next –
while Moon Creek refuses to freeze.
I am falling in love with our modern life
transformed into a black-and-white photograph –
monochromatic woods of white snow and charcoal trunks;
our thoughts so much more basic this March than last –
where to find flour
how to wash hands to survive
which board game to play today.
I am falling in love with the mysterious intact orange
our boys found in a snowbank,
now halved on the deck,
an offering for orioles
who may never arrive.
I am falling in love with uncertainty,
I tell myself without buying it.
My mouth still goes sour
at each unknown we’re forced to swallow now.
Honestly, I am just falling into a holding pattern,
making a new space in my mind
where not knowing is allowed
(if not warmly welcomed).
This year the universe keeps pounding on my door
like the house is on fire,
desperately trying to wake me up,
shaking me in my bed until I will repeat after it:
you don’t need to know what’s next.
In fact, you may never get to know what happened.
All that’s left for you to know, to trust, to believe,
is that if you squint hard enough
there will always be something in your field of view
worthy of your love.
solstice, mountains
on almost-the-longest-day
we walk in sun for hours
scoop snow with our bare hands
cradle an unexpected bit of home
that puts December right
our sons confirm
we are mountain people
at home in the big bare peaks
where you easily see where you’ve been
and have a good view of where you’re going
here you can read the weather well
just by glancing up into unobstructed blue
all the way round the rough horizon
the high point of the peak is unequivocal:
you’ve absolutely reached your goal
standing there silently
we trace the ribbon of trail
all the way back home
