Fire on the Mountain

I’m headed for a writers’ conference this morning and taking some of my work to study. Full of self-doubt, full of hope, full of happiness for the pleasure of learning, I feel great rising early to examine the power of the written word today.

One night this past summer, as fire burned in the mountains above Santa Barbara, my husband and I drove past the site, and I was awestruck by the power of the flames. It occurred to me that my reaction should have been horror, if I were thinking of others defeated, smoke-tired, trapped in a deadly natural disaster.
I came home and wrote about that uncomfortable juxtaposition.

Fire on the Mountain

Beautiful
that flaming orange flower
blooming high up there
under the blue-black sky

From your place of safety
down here on the flat
that flickering blossom
thrills you
like an exotic woman
running her tongue
around your lips

It is so stunning
you could stand and watch
all night, a moth
for whom the flame
is the sacred
needed thing

You almost forget
the screaming horses
the dogs who cannot run
fast enough
the cat crouching
in a corner of the house
hissing at the inferno


Chris Alba © 2009
Photo by CBC News