Facing the Fire… God Elements 14 Dec 202014 Dec 2020 In the beginning before any burning bush God was fire alone it must be so for what is God if not life? what is life if not fire? creation erupts…
Facing the Fire… Light I Can Hear 13 Dec 202013 Dec 2020 I watch, mesmerized at how quickly bark catches fire, and how bark, just as quickly, creates her afterlife in mid-air; I want to join her, and the night, throw myself…
Facing the Fire Burns 12 Dec 202010 Dec 2020 I’m holding in, the moment, An attempt to slow it, Hiding behind the spider webs, Screaming in the kitchen, They sleep in their beds, Fearing under the sheets, Picking away…
Facing the Fire… Desert Phoenix 11 Dec 20204 Dec 2020 The pagan sun at zenith stands, Above the scorched and ravaged land, Where wildfires blaze and cattle thirst, And all below seems dry and cursed. The cities suck the…
Facing the Fire… I Fear the Dragon 10 Dec 202010 Dec 2020 By Joni Caggiano Joni Caggiano is a self-published author of the book “The Path Toward the Light.” Her blog is https://www.the-inner-child.com, where she has published poetry, photography, and short stories.…
Facing the Fire Red Maples 9 Dec 20204 Dec 2020 As radiant as springtime’s blossoms, fall foliage mimics summer fruit brightly colored at peak ripeness. Then crisping leaves like licking flames soon subside as winter ashes and sift to roots…
Facing the Fire… Fire Ship 8 Dec 202029 Nov 2020 The sea expressed itself leaving us Provisions saturated and impractical Charts drawn in dissolving plot lines Among a vanishing and mutinous crew Overboard went treasured collections And wealth as we…
Facing the Fire Elegy for Saint Helena 7 Dec 20207 Dec 2020 The orange fruit dove who perched upon an untouched sea of grace Whistled gentle knells of vapor that ascended into space By the time her prayers reached heaven, her home…
Facing the Fire… Across Kilauea 6 Dec 20204 Dec 2020 In heavy downpour, blinded by somber clouds, I stand on her high perimeter imagining Halemaumau far below, simmering on the face of his mother caldera, Kilauea, who, in 1967,…
Facing the Fire… The Fire of Francisville 5 Dec 20204 Dec 2020 When summer heat gives way to cold and ice and village folk begin the winter war of fixing window-panes and checking twice equipment, grains, and jars they have in store,…
Facing the Fire Burn-scape 3 Dec 20202 Dec 2020 Fireweed, graminoids, mushrooms and morels – seed of a lodgepole pine. Black-backed woodpeckers that nest in the burned-out hollows. Fire-following beetles and the bats that follow them – all waiting…
Facing the Fire… Thoughts on Fire 2 Dec 20202 Dec 2020 By Deborah Sarbin Deborah Sarbin writes from northwestern Pennsylvania, where she teaches English at Clarion University. She began writing poetry in her fifties, after decades of reading and study.
Facing the Fire… Fire Drill (Santa Rosa, California, 2017) 2 Dec 202025 Nov 2020 At bedtime, no hint. Sky clear. Moon rising. House built like a boat. Wine Country hills a lullaby of waves. Attachments spill from small rooms— tatami mats, heirloom…
Facing the Fire… Savannah Renaissance 1 Dec 202025 Nov 2020 Across the landscape seething As a dragon breathing The conflagration whirling As smoke begins swirling Long-needled brown duff Provides incendiary stuff To spread ore the floor Consuming stems,…
Facing the Fire Almost Halloween 30 Nov 202028 Nov 2020 Here in California it is October, almost Halloween. To my Eastern eye the colors are off: no orange, no rust. Even the pumpkin patch of a seasonal entrepreneur emits a…
Facing the Fire… The Pullman Car Factory Fire 30 Nov 202022 Nov 2020 July 13, 1973 Salvation never arrived.…
Facing the Fire… Children of Fire 29 Nov 202029 Nov 2020 Once we fled dry season fires like other beasts, but then we learned to stay along the edges, to go back in when the charred ground cooled, where there was…
Facing the Fire… Spring Burning 29 Nov 202029 Nov 2020 Meadow renewal with burning – flames cleanse, consume seeds unwanted plants and sprouts thickets, trees crowding grass – all gone! Invasive species restrained, now ash. Grass again can roam…
Facing the Fire Natural Disaster 28 Nov 202027 Nov 2020 The fire came from the national forest, the firemen pumping water from my brother’s pool later said it jumped over his house and the street roaring down the backside of…
Facing the Fire… Creek Fire Bear 28 Nov 202027 Nov 2020 Red scabs Where embers scorched away fur, Blistered paws From the last rush through flames, An eye burned white, Staring at nothing, You stand below Sheep Creek. Among boulders snowbound…
Facing the Fire… Walking Black Earth 27 Nov 202027 Nov 2020 for Alvin Greenfield We’ll begin with materials unknown for rebuilding, and fail at trying to file the fire like a death certificate in our brains, burned around the edges. I…
Facing the Fire… A Meeting With The Riverman 27 Nov 202022 Nov 2020 Went down, to the riverbank, to meet ‘the riverman’, one autumn afternoon, I had a few questions, of my own, to ask them, this time. A dead branch, half-submerged,…
Facing the Fire… Nightmare 26 Nov 202022 Nov 2020 A little flickering fire upon a hill We’ve had our eye on for a while, until It suddenly decides to be our fate, Jumping the road with no fuel…
Facing the Fire… Red 26 Nov 202024 Nov 2020 The euonymus are flaming. Their little feather leaves, red as coxcomb and wattle on a rooster’s head. Red standing out from the rest, like the wheelbarrow (in that poem)* so…
Facing the Fire Burn Zone, Six Years After the Fire 25 Nov 202024 Nov 2020 At first all you notice are the charred branches sticking this way and that like an x-ray of life, naked without their familiar brush, wood bones marking summers past, hands…
Facing the Fire… 2020 Summer Sommelier 25 Nov 202019 Nov 2020 swirls her wine’s smoky aroma which makes easy to identify burnt oak’s origin near current Sonoma uncontrolled raging fires. Poem by Gerard Sarnat Gerard Sarnat won San Francisco…
Facing the Fire… Jumping the River 25 Nov 202025 Nov 2020 By Carol Amato Carol Amato's poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently: The Peterborough Poetry Project Anthology; The Poet’s Touchstone (New Hampshire Poetry Society); 2019 Connecticut River…
