finally fall

This is
my favorite time of year
leaves
just yellow at the edges
air
crisp in the morning
firewood
stacked cord by cord
in the yard.

fire days

It is Friday, July something. Something with a 1. Maybe it's the 10th or maybe it's the 11th. I do know it's Friday. On Tuesday we woke up in the morning to an incredibly strange, orangy-gray sky. At 7:30 in the morning it was as dark as before dawn. A little later, the sun was so muted we could look straight at it. As the day progressed, the sky did not. It got a bit lighter, but mostly it just stayed eerily orangeish, and midmorning we realized small bits of ash and embers were raining down on us.

We realized the lightning fires that had been burning for two weeks had kicked up, particularly the one in the West Branch Feather River canyon, which was due east of us.

We spent a couple of hours thinking and mumbling and watching the sky and the news. By 2:00 pm we were putting into our cars the items we had packed over a week earlier: the canvas bags filled with important papers, pictures, albums, assorted pieces of jewelry (like we owned the crown jewels or something), sketch books and journals (me), oil paintings of long-gone pets and lighthouses (Steve), and an odd assortment of small items like little cat figurines (me) and earplugs and swim goggles (Steve). We did this in silence, each of us methodically marching back and forth to our respective cars. Finally the moment came when it was time to pack up the cats (all five of them) into their carriers, throw cat food and a litter box into the car, and take off. With a last scan of the front yard, we drove away.

Friends had set out a couple hours before us, with their four cats, headed for a Motel 6 in Willows, about an hour and a half away, so we followed them there. As we drove into the motel parking lot, I got a call on my cell from my friend Sharon, who had evacuated with her husband and four cats. Within two hours, they were unloading cat carriers into the motel room next to ours. This picture of our cars prompts me to want to sing:

"One of these cars is not like the others.
One of these cars doesn't belong.
Can you guess which car is not like the others,
before I finish my song?"


Thanks to free wireless Internet, we contacted friends and neighbors who had scattered to various places. We had about a day of worry when one close friend, a former neighbor who lived right on the burning canyon and who had been manditorily evacuated (cool word, manditorily) seemed to have disappeared into the ether, but we decided to go with the "no news is good news" train of thought. Finally, we received word from his wife that he was safe, and that the cat was in the shelter run by the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (donations gladly accepted).

The next morning I received some emailed pictures from another former next door neighbor on the canyon, who had snuck with her husband back into their home the night before and taken pictures from their deck, showing the fire burning across the canyon. Their house, and the one we used to live in as well as a whole line of them, sit at the top edge of this canyon, some on stilts. Down below is the West Branch of the Feather River, a rather narrow little thing, certainly not enough of anything to stop a fire.

Firefighters (bless them all) had been and were still battling to keep the fire from jumping the (very narrow) river and racing back up the other side, straight to these houses. 

Yesterday, I guess that was Thursday, we had this view from our motel window:


Conversations with some of the firefighters who descended onto the motel revealed that they were "having a hard time getting the fires under control." Fortunately, it has still been prevented from crossing the river into the town of Paradise. The people in Concow, south of us, have not been as lucky; they've lost about fifty homes and the fire is still burning.

And burning.

Hopefully, we will be able to go home soon. Maybe tomorrow.
.

fire, fire everywhere

Lately we have had fire at the forefront of our thoughts, day and night. Living on a ridge at the top of and alongside a series of canyons, we began on June 11 alternating between various news sources to keep abreast of fire updates as a huge fire skipped across the bottom of four canyons and headed uphill. As I wrote on June 15, nearly 30,000 acres burned just outside the town of Paradise, and 67 homes were lost. It took several days for that fire to be contained, and for those of us who were not affected, things started to get back to normal.

But not for long.

A week ago Saturday, in the middle of the afternoon, we started hearing thunder. And then it got louder. There were not many "one one thousands" to say between the flashes of light and the amazing crashing noises that went along with them. We also heard zaps and cracks and pops. It didn't take us very long to get all the cats into the house (not that we needed to coax them) and by that evening, we started to hear about fires that had been started by the lightning. By Sunday night, hundreds of fires were burning throughout Northern California, over two dozen of them here in our county. And it wasn't long until we discovered that we were literally surrounded by fire.

And smoke. Lots of smoke. For three days, we could hardly see through the trees to the house next door.

There are firefighters here from all over the state and even out of state. We have been constantly checking the Internet, television and radio to see which fires are getting bigger, which ones are spreading to where, which ones are merging, and which might be threatening us (none, so far... whew!), and who is being evacuated from where.

On the day when we discovered that a fairly close neighborhood was on evacuation alert, we started getting organized ... just in case. So now we have satchels and canvas sacks full of pictures and important papers all packed up and ready to be carried out the door. The cat carriers (five of them!) are stacked in the garage and we have lists of "last minute things" to grab, like medications and money and underwear. And the external hard drive and the laptop.

The biggest worry for us is that there is only one road out of our community, going down the hill. For over ten years, the citizens here have been asking for another exit road. There's an unpaved forest road to the north (which also happens to be uphill), but it's pretty rugged and only good for trucks and 4-wheel-drive vehicles. Our Congressman, Wally Herger, has been in office over twenty years and has done nothing about this problem. Of course, every time there's a fire, he flies around in a helicopter looking at the damage and then attends town hall meetings where he pats himself on the back for having secured 11 million dollars for the road. Which needs more money than that. Which is still just gravel. Which HE doesn't need because HE lives in an exclusive, gated community. And of course he doesn't mention that he only secured that money because citizens hounded him. But I digress ....

Today the helicopters are flying overhead with regularity, carrying those big buckets of water, and the skies are starting to be blue again. Thank you, firefighters!
.

invasion

No terrorist, no alien
from deepest space
could do more damage
than fire storming
every edge
of this mountain town.

One quiet morn
it quickly flares in weeds
ten miles away, jumps
over delta-carved canyons
four in a row, just like that,
heads uphill far too fast
for a small town fire crew.

Homes fall in its path
one after another.

On the high side of town,
at the apex of this
confluence of canyons
we flip from news to news.
Maps spread on the table
we follow the path, measure
the shrinking distance
between us and it, finger-trace
the north road, the south road,
balance the cost of leaving
with the risk of staying.

We field emails and phone calls
from family, from friends,
“Are you alright?” they ask
“Is it close?” and we say
“We are fine,” while we know

that we sit at the apex
of this confluence of canyons,
that no road leads to safety,
that we are
at the mercy
of the wind.
.

daylilies as metaphor

On the very day an ultimately devastating fire was beginning to rage toward Paradise, just a few miles down the mountain from where we live, our garden presented us with this group of fiery orange daylilies:


Aptly named as they are, this particular group was gone the next day, replaced by a smaller and less spectacular array. Unfortunately, not so the fire. Although we were safe in our home the whole time, the town of Paradise suffered some tremendous losses: over seventy homes, about 30,000 acres, and, if we are lucky, some complacency about how we should act when we live in a fire-prone area in a drought year during a windstorm.

I am always amazed when I drive around town and see people with their cigarettes hanging out their car windows. It takes a particular kind of stupid to act in such an irresponsible manner in a forest town that is not particularly known for its humidity, and in which the fire danger is more often high than low. And if you suggest that people stop burning their leaves, even though they have access to yard waste pickup right in front of their own houses on a biweekly basis, some of them scream about their individual rights and the dangers of tree-huggers, usually accompanied by frantic wavings of the American flag and projectile spit.

If you live in a fire area, smoke with your car windows closed, please.

gemstone quiz

This morning I did a gemstone quiz. Here's the result:

Your Gemstone Says...

You are stable, strong, and full of life. You are an inspiring person. People turn to you first for leadership and advice. You are able to gently help people get to where they need to be. And while you aren't afraid to lead when necessary, you are never heartless or bossy.

The Gemstone Test

Now this is all very well and good, but I'm not sure people I know would agree with the part that says I'm not bossy. :-)

30 poems in 30 days award

Because I (along with hundreds of other people)
wrote a poem a day in April ~ thirty poems in thirty days ~
I (along with those other hundreds of people)
got this award from PoeticAsides :-)

mother's day

Yesterday, after reading an article about how the deck is stacked against mothers in America, I followed a link to a website called Moms Rising which in turn led me to assorted information about motherhood, parenting, health care, gender inequality and other issues, and of course that pesky little problem of women not being paid as much as men for doing the same kind of work and feminist backlash in general. One would think that we had gotten past that by now, but noooooo....

Anyway, then I started thinking about Mother's Day and eventually my brain cells started contemplating some famous and not-so-famous mothers who have made a difference, like Mother Jones and Mothers Against War and Mothers Against the Draft and even the Mothers of Invention, who of course weren't mothers at all, but what the heck? So anyway, that's how I spent my Mother's Day, after chatting with my kids and my mom on the phone, and taking some pictures of irises in the garden. Hope your day was as informative and entertaining as mine was. If not, take a couple of minutes to watch this Mother's Day video on YouTube... it will invoke fond memories in anyone with siblings. :-)

poetry wednesday: weather

The PoeticAsides Poem-A-Day-Challenge was so successful that Robert Lee Brewer, the blogger in charge, is continuing the project with Poetry Wednesdays. Every Wednesday there will be a prompt. This week's prompt was to write a poem about weather. Well, I like to blame the weather for lots of things: bad hair days, over-active students, etc. The picture shows my favorite kind of weather. :-)

Excuses

Any change of weather
can be blamed for a host of ills:
hair standing on end,
skin dry and flaky,
Kindergartners acting as though
they have never before
been inside a classroom.

lovin' it

I am totally loving my garden today.

For me, spring is finally in place when the iris begin to bloom. It all revolves around the iris.

Here is the front of my house today. A picture really can't do it justice; pictures never do. Even if they are worth a thousand words. :-)

a poem a day: the last one

The prompt for the last poem in the Poem a Day Challenge:
write a poem about endings. 'Nuf said....

End of the School Year

The calendar stretches
from September to June,
July and August belonging
to some alternate universe.

At the dawn of May, it begins to end:
children once cautious have become
demanding, impatient,
knowing somehow even at six,
that they have accomplished
something momentous
and are ready to move on.

They have learned to make it
all the way across the monkey bars,
can walk edge of the playground wall
without falling, are willing
to share snacks and crayons.

They write goodbye notes
to their teachers, to their friends,
adorned with asymmetrical hearts
filled with “I love you XOXO.”

three before the end

Wow. Only one poem left to write for the Poem A Day Challenge. I can't even begin to imagine what the last prompt will be, considering the prompt for April 28 was to write a sestina. A sestina? Hmm.... I've never written a sestina in my life... until now. Considering that most of my poems are of the minimalist variety, this was quite a project: a highly structured, seven stanza poem, six lines to most of the stanzas, with a set pattern of words used at the ends of each line. I managed to get it done in record time. And it almost even makes sense! And then that prompt was followed by the prompt to write a poem about exercise. Exercise? Ha. I exercise only slightly more often than I write sestinas. :-) Here are the poems for days 29, 28, and 27:

April 29: a poem about exercise

Exercise

‘Tis an exercise in futility
for me to consider exercise
anything more than tedious
not to mention tiring.
My exercise of choice
is the writing of a poem
the solving of a puzzle
or the carrying of a heavy book
to the couch.


April 28: sestina ~ seven stanzas, six lines in the first six stanzas, three lines in the seventh stanza, using only six words at the ends of the lines, following a set pattern of these words at the end of each line. Click here to read more about writing a sestina. My attempt:


Before Spring

In reverie I’m able to gather
my thoughts into one circle
turning on itself like a line
of adults wanting to be children
one more time before
winter turns again to spring.

My thoughts of spring
when the urge to gather
roses and irises even before
they bloom in the garden circle
remind me of impatient children
unable to hold themselves in line.

And it is a fine line
that draws itself toward spring
when I remember my own children
who brought me bouquets, gathered
with ribbon, blue and red circles
of grosgrain they’d found before

I put away my needlework, before
I gave up and fell into line,
hugging the precious circle
of my self until I could spring
away in silence to gather
precious memories for my children.

Because it is those children
who taught me to put others before
my self, who showed me how to gather
moments that would create a solid line
that held fast from summer to spring
bringing the closing of the circle.

Once they began to create circles
of their own, no longer children,
I knew that by spring
I could be half way gone before
I needed to pay out a line
we all could separately gather.

And we gathered into a circle,
I lined up with my children,
And we made peace before spring.


April 27: one-half of a two person conversation

Circularity

It doesn’t really matter ...
What I mean is ...
Yes, that’s true, but ...
Well, that’s your opinion.

Yes I understand ...
but I disagree with you.

It doesn’t mean I don’t get it
It just means I don’t agree.

What ever gave you that idea?

That’s absurd.
I never said that.

Fine.

day 26: overweight

The Poem A Day Challenge marches on and I'm amazed that I am keeping up with it. Sort of. Today's prompt is to write a poem with the title of "I'm so over (___)." After spending a good part of the day running all kinds of "over" words through my brain, this is where I ended up, probably because I ate way to much at Gold Nugget Days, a yearly event in our town which celebrates the finding of a 54 pound gold nugget during the California Gold Rush.

I’m so overweight

according to the charts
at the doctor’s office and Weight Watchers,
although I’ve read that Marilyn Monroe
wore a size 14.
Just like me.
I can’t help but wonder,
if I put on one of those girly dresses
the kind with a tight waist and a full skirt,
and then stood on top of an air vent,
if my picture could become famous.

day 25: kindergarten teacher

The prompt for April 25 in the Poem A Day Challenge is to write an "occupational poem" so here's my take on teaching Kindergarten, along with some nifty Kindergarten artwork:



Not Always Thankless

The Kindergarten teacher misses the warning
on a child’s changing face
just before he flicks a paintbrush
loaded with paint at the wall, at the floor,
on the little girl with pink sparkly shoes.

After school she gets a workout
scrubbing paint off the floor
in the sudden absence
of children’s voices, each one
wanting her now, needing her,
pulling on her sleeve, her pants,
the tail of her untucked shirt,
asking for help, needing a pencil,
wanting a snack, a drink,
needing to go to the bathroom,
to the playground, to throw up.

In silence she can take the time
to enjoy the smaller moments:
the lighting up of young eyes
when a friend says “You are really smart!”
or “Do you want some of my snack?”
Now she can look more carefully
at the art work, the writings,
and remember the feel of little hands
seeking hers on the playground.

day 24: mary at six

April 24's prompt for the Poem A Day Challenge was to use a photograph as a prompt for a poem. I cheated by using an already-written poem rather than writing a new one, but it's a recent poem, so maybe it's only partly cheating, and I had this very picture in mind when I wrote the poem in the first place. I have to admit that I really have little clue how old Mary is in this photo (she's the one on the right) but six sounds good to me.



Mary

At six years old
her wide dark eyes stare out
from a grainy black and white.
In her young life
she has already known
the uncertainty
of being whisked from home
the clatter of a non-stop train
the delivery into hope of sanctuary
holding her mother’s hand.

day 22 and 23: a poem a day

April 23's Poem A Day Challenge prompt was to write a poem about getting older:

Within sight of the age
when my grandmother died,
I consider each new ache
carefully
wondering:
is it temporary
or will I soon be using it
as a sign that winter is imminent.


April 22:
In honor of Earth Day, the prompt was to write a nature poem. Considering that I, along with a great number of other people, including my mother, have been watching the nesting of two Peregrine Falcons on the roof of City Hall in San Jose, California, and considering that four eyases decided to hatch on Earth Day, I decided to honor the falcons. They are on the *other* side of this building, on the roof:


Urban Peregrines

A pair of falcons takes turns
sitting on their four eggs
on the roof of a high rise,
their nesting habits are visible to the world
via web cam. Every change of the guard,
every body reposition is coo’ed over
by humans living vicariously, hovering
over laptops and in work stations.
Pigeon delivery reports are emailed
by the hour. When the eyases hatch,
all hell breaks loose on the email list.

day 21: a poem a day

The prompt today in the Poem A Day Challenge is to use a snippet of an overheard conversation. Since I teach Kindergarten, I overhear a lot of comments between little people which one would seldom hear coming from adults. One thing all teachers of little people hear with regularity is the dreaded....

You’re Not My Friend Anymore

The good morning song
is interrupted by fatal words
proclaiming the dissolution
of friendship between
one five year old and another.
In Kindergarten, solidarity
is a tenuous proposition
hinging on simple acts:
the reclaiming of an offered toy
a decline to share fruit roll ups
or the choice to sit next to
someone else.

seven together

Today I am posting seven poems from the Poem A Day Challenge. One would think it wouldn't take too much of an effort to post one each day, but somehow that doesn't seem to be happening. I have no explanation. Anyway, here are seven poems in reverse order. I should note that I did cheat on one day: April 16th's poem is an old one.


April 20: a love poem

I refuse to write
a capital L love poem;
it's just not in me.


April 19: a memory about me that I don’t remember

They tell me I used to have a dog
a black and white cocker spaniel mix
although I don't remember.
I do remember the doghouse
and the way it closed around me
when I went inside, the hair on the blanket
and the dusty smell of canine fur.
But the dog? I neither remember
the dog nor his disappearance
though I'm told he was killed
by ground glass fed to him by a burglar.


April 18: use the line,
“There is no connection”

No Connection

But for the weekly calls
on Sunday mornings
there is no connection
between this generation
and the last
and this connection
is barely enough to satisfy
the mother’s knowing
that it is the daughter’s role
to make the call, and
the daughter’s knowing
that her mother time
will be the same.


April 17: poem in third person

Immigrant

She comes to America
a debt paid to her brother’s friend
lands at Ellis Island
crosses gates and turnstiles
rides the train three thousand miles
to California to marry.
She spends the next twenty years
bringing twelve siblings
across the ocean
one by one.


April 16: poem with a surprise ending

Noelle

It is because I think I am invincible,
impervious to the mundane
trials that overtake the ordinary,
because I declare in late night musings,
wined and incensed, that I am able
to direct every note,

that I am humbled by the sudden
realization that even I can be
overpowered by random whims of
the sarcoma god, who makes its plan
to kidnap my companion.

She comforts me, as the dying will,
with strict obedience to daily ritual:
her lazy stretch in the first triangle
of morning sun on the carpet,
under the wooden rocker.


April 15: an insult poem or a poem about taxes

In 2005

Dick Cheney’s taxes
came in at a rate of
five and seven tenths percent,
after his bill was lowered by
one million
ninety-three thousand
nine-hundred thirty seven
dollars.

So?

Gotta love those tax cuts.


April 14: how (something) behaves

How the Trees Behave

They are my coccoon, my cave
in the mountains, my shade,
my dark and light.
They swing wildly in windstorms
drop pine needles on the roof
remind me with their whistlings
that they are almost human,
almost family. Almost.
In summer they’re the coolness
in my eyes and on my bare arms;
in winter their branches
catch snowflakes one by one,
until they are draped in white
like first communion dresses
or wedding cake frosting.

three days' poems

The Poem A Day Challenge marches on..... and I have had two of my poems highlighted by the blog owner who's running this thing. The two are "Always a Mom" and "Kindergartner"... both of which I particularly like. Here are the three for the last three days:

April 13: respond to a song

When I’m 64

I must remember to remind
my children not to let me
wear white anklets and plastic shoes
not to mention a flowered muu-muu
even when no one is at home.


April 12: “I’m sorry” poem

“Sorry” has a double edge
for, truth be told, we make
our choices consciously
for good or bad. Still,
no atonement can undo the way
I turned your life inside out
in order to live my own,
nor would I have been able
to do differently.


April 11: something interesting to me
or something usually overlooked

Seedling

In autumn the acorns
fall from black oaks
some are squirreled away
to undisclosed locations
others roll down the driveway
into the street
most find their way into
crevices and accidental furrows
randomly scattered in the yard
we push them into soft dirt
on our way to the woodpile
stacking our heat for winter
when it rains, they settle slightly
into concave beds and then
in spring the tiny shoots emerge
probe upward and then down
into the soggy soil
until they are strong enough
to raise the acorns off the ground
to begin the year's new seedlings.

two days' poems

I'm a day behind on the Poem A Day Challenge. I got hung up on the prompt for day 9, which was to choose a word and write about it. It took me forever to choose a word. Yeeks. So going backward, here are the poems for days 9 and 10:

April 10: write about a place



Waddell Creek Beach

At dawn the ocean
gray begins to lighten
its drumbeat of waves
light on sand
meant only for walking.
The slow slap of water
awakens the memory
of your eyes as you sat
on a log that seemed
so out of place.
I see you clearly
even two decades later.


April 9: write about a word

Word

The problem
with writing a poem about one word
is finding just the right word
because not any word will do.
It must be a word that sings
or creaks or seeks to evoke
an emotion deep in the gut,
a word that tickles in the throat
or hums with sweet nostalgia.
It can't be just an ordinary word
plucked haphazardly from anywhere
because a poem is better than that.