After the Fire - Danielle Bryant

[Larry Robinson]

After the Fire

What was it like to run
forced from my home forever?
A new life to live in a nightmare
every day tears
hard acceptance and fear
then to find daylight 
in all the living so bright 
it burns
a rose’s heady sweetness of home
is the same as 
the haunting of wildfire smoke

The support from so many 
who kept us from falling
we couldn’t have survived without
receiving receiving receiving
help felt like a heart attack
stretching my big pride pushing it aside
breaking open
an already broken heart
grief breathed into my bones of lead
a violence
stuck there in the deep

Was it all a dream? 
After 
we were refugees
I remember swimming at a hotel in Healdsburg
floating in abundant blue
a cool balm a boon in a strange town
not home
nothing of ours known 
but this little box of a room
held us from sinking

drinking helped us drift to lift
the weight of loss to forgetfulness
dizzy we’d fall into bed
welcoming the surrender
we became water

surreal days followed more surreal days
 and a searing pain without end.

	- Danielle Bryant