What We Packed at 3 A.M. - Katherine Hastings

[Larry Robinson]

What We Packed at 3 A.M.

 
 
The dog 

the drugs

 
The cash

the cards

 
The elder neighbors who couldn’t drive

 
We packed our fear

though it couldn’t be contained

 
We crawled in our cars

as the fire raced 

 
through its feast

of everything

 
of everyone

or everyone’s dreams

 
Everywhere we looked

RED    RED

 
We called friends in the hills

No answer

 
We cried Jesus Christ!

No answer

 
The fire jumped and morphed

and ate some more

 
Garage doors wouldn’t open

Trees blocked the roads

 
The red sky

grew wider and taller

 
and shot its off-springs

into the air

 
to ignite their own

smorgasbords

 
We unpacked our prayers

to all the gods

 
we don’t believe in

And when we reached safety

 
we watched our phones

(we packed those, too)

 
for news and it

wasn’t good.

 
Yes, we had each other.

Yes, we were alive.

 
But our world,

our beautiful Sonoma County world

 
What we packed

wasn’t the mountains

 
wasn’t the deer

the coyotes, the quail

 
wasn’t the mountain lions

or mountain lakes

 
wasn’t Willi’s

or Fountaingrove

 
wasn’t Coffey Park

or the field of larks

 
or the knowledge

it would take two weeks

 
to get back home

or that home would still

 
be there

or that the gorgeous golden grass

 
just outside our windows

would change overnight

 
into candles waving

their virgin wicks

 
 	- Katherine Hastings
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/poetrylovers/attachments/20200823/c153dbd9/attachment.html>