Serenity Hills, 1981

In my dreams I’m there,
scuffing my way over blackened earth
still smelling of scorch,
of the fire days earlier that cleared
every foot of open space of rolling landscape
where I was about to live.

Somehow the neighbors got their horses to safety,
the firefighters saved the houses,
even the little studio attached to the garage
that three days later I would call home.

That summer night I was 40 miles away,
tumbled into bed with a volunteer firefighter,
who, had he known, would’ve also taken up
hose and ax in those burning hills
in his grimy turnout gear and ashy boots.

Instead, the spark between us flared
into a kind of heat new to us both,
having no idea what we were igniting,
no concept of what we would be together.

And, on the cusp of everything to come,
walking through aftermath the color of crows,
carrying a bit of his shame that he had failed
his fellows, along with my own what ifs,

I knew that neither of us would have
done it differently,
even if we had known.