The Fires
By David Mason
American poet Ezra Pound once said poetry is “news that stays news,” but in truth the art is not always adept at keeping pace with the rapidity of current events. It is made for the long haul. Still, I felt I should try to say what I could about the fires devouring so much of our state at this time. I dedicate the poem to those on the front lines of the fight.
Here is a house, here is a neighborhood.
Here is a street, a door, a window, a room.
Here is a drought, here a beetled pine.
Here is a wildfire leaping from limb to roof.
There is a law of lightning, law of wood.
There is a need to burn, to lose, to grow.
There is the charred scar, there the flying ash.
To dwell is not to shelter, we should know.
Here are the people packing their cars to flee.
Here are the photos in frames, the pets on leashes.
Here are the children bewildered, coughing smoke.
Here are the firemen climbing the hills in the heat.
We are the street, we are the neighborhood.
We are the garden living and dying to bloom.
We are the parched yards, we are the trembling deer.
We are the long walk looking to find our home.
David Mason is poet laureate of Colorado and a professor at Colorado College.
Apocalypse
By Anita Pariseau
An incessant sun burns bright for days on end,
sucking every last drop of moisture from an already parched land.
Red sky in morning, cowboys take warning … .
Fires rage against deceivingly blue Western skies.
Turbulent winds fueling already contentious fire,
Reducing livelihoods, homesteads and habitats to ashes,
Sparing nothing in its path.
Family photos obliterated except from memory.
Lifelong possessions gone in a flash
— something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue.
Promises broken, stories unspoken.
When man pits against nature, nature always wins.
The quarter moon just a mirage of tranquility.
Anita Pariseau is the director of alumni relations and executive director of the Colorado School of Mines Alumni Association.
