A poet friend of mine took her dog for a walk,
could not get back to her house, and then
she posted on Facebook, the gazebo survived.
Her house was one of 14,000 burned in the Camp Fire.
And her husband posted on Facebook, that's
not exactly exactly accurate.
We also have the ceramic pot where
the back porch used to be.
So after great trauma, sometimes the necessary chores
create another layer of trauma.
That's what begins this poem.
It's called "Red Sky," and the request
at the beginning of the poem is something
that was asked of her.
"Red Sky."
"List everything you've lost.
Ars poetica of heartbreak.
What's possible to replace, what never is.
The sky's memory-- smoke.
Say a wall of flames sears inside your eyelids every time
you close them.
What wish floats on streams of ash?
What sky remains?
In the waiting room, on the never off TV,
a river of poor people draws near the line.
The talking head's scarlet lips say
officials can process only a trickle each day.
Thousands gather.
Next to me a woman with a fistula, mature and swollen,
woman with her upper arms saran wrapped,
woman with a beatific smile says, why process them?
Just send them back.
Say a girl knows early.
Knows, as a doctor, she wants to improve world health.
Say this girl hears along the way what girls can't do.
Say she laughs.
Say she prepares herself to laugh a lot.
Say this season coyotes, sleek and shiny, gorge plenty
of rabbits.
Sure-footed javelina brush by creosote's tiny yellow blooms,
nip new paddles of prickly pear.
In their burrows whiptail lizards, shedding rattlers,
scholarly and deliberate gila monsters, repose,
patient as earth."