Paradise

[indar]

Paradise

Every road we tried, we were turned back: they were all blocked with burning cars. We saw deer and other animals on fire--that was hard. I started to think we weren't going to make it out

Jackie, Paradise fire survivor

Santana,
devil wind
blows
against nature:
from the east,
heated off salt flats,
whirled from
sidewinder backs,
blasts
high, dry hills,
summons,
releases,
sets on the move
towering black genies

leaning west,
long dark arms
stretched
across blazed skies,
advancing slow,
seaward,
led by sizzling grasses,
exploding eucalyptus,
birds in blow-torch pines.

fed by family photographs,
the carefully
laid-away
wedding dress,
great grandmother's
spinning wheel,
goats roasted
on the livestock fence,
sacrificed
to the freeing of the light.


I originally wrote a different version of this during the Cedar Fire just east of where I live. These recent fires are setting new records for intensity and devestation

[Matty11]

Hi Indar,
I found the final section the most scary and sorrowful. Fires are such a rapid, relentless appetite.

Cheers

Phil

[indar]

Thanks Phil--I wondered if the personification of the wind and smoke is detached from the immediacy of what actually happens to life caught in the flames. Your reference to the effect of the last stanza maybe indicates that I should keep it and build backward the bigger picture of these fires. Or maybe just keep the last two stanzas as the whole poem? Appreciate the read and comment

[Colm Roe]

Don't see why you'd lose S1.
S1 and S2 build towards the real tragedy in S3. That 'build' felt like the approaching fire. 
Loss of life aside, when I heard about the amount of homes lost I thought about all those personal/irreplaceable items.
So S3, especially the first half really resonated. 'Fed by photographs' succinctly described how I felt.
A powerful poem.   

[Matty11]

Thanks Phil--I wondered if the personification of the wind and smoke is detached from the immediacy of what actually happens to life caught in the flames. Your reference to the effect of the last stanza maybe indicates that I should keep it and build backward the bigger picture of these fires. Or maybe just keep the last two stanzas as the whole poem? Appreciate the read and comment

Hi Indar,
          I responded to the tragedy your words conveyed. There is a 'detachment' in the 'preamble'.

Or maybe just keep the last two stanzas as the whole poem? 

That would be my approach.

all the best

Phil