Change is forever
By Barry Vitcov
Five years ago, the Almeda Fire ripped through the Rogue Valley destroying significant parts of Talent and Phoenix and leaving all of us on edge whenever a new fire season arrives. We pack go bags, check our evacuation zones, make sure our cars are fueled and ready to go on a moment’s notice, have a plan to connect with family and friends and insure our pets remain safe and out of harm’s way. We not only count on our incredible first responders to be there when disaster strikes, but also on one another to rally mutual support. Five years ago, too many experienced total devastation.
Mary Beth Watt’s poem reminds us that many physical and emotional scars remain from the September 8, 2020 Almeda Fire. It changed us.
After the Fire
by Mary Beth Watt
Five years after fire
consumed lives and livings,
after flames licked the sides of
Bear Creek while early fall
winds pushed leaping orange
sound through two towns,
taking everything the flames chose
to take, powered by heat
and rage, two years after,
I can no longer sort victory
from death, survival from
forgetfulness.
Though the fire is long out,
we remember the dead
we know the displaced
we count the possessions
lost and irreplaceable.
Beside the highway that
follows the creek that
follows the path of flames
some blackened trees remain,
beautiful and terrible,
embossed patterns
on the slate sky.
We hold silent vigil
for what was lost,
watch as new replaces old.
No matter how lightly touched
we are forever changed.
We remember.
We mourn.
Mary Beth Watt has lived in Ashland for ten years after falling in love with Ashland’s theater and population ten years before the move. Before coming to Ashland, she worked in a variety of Silicon Valley jobs while moving around the South Bay area, After ten years in Ashland, she knows there is no place she would rather be during the present times. With her wife, Teresa, Mary Beth walks her two Siberian huskies every day, enjoys a strong community of friends, and finds poetry in everything.
Poetry Submissions Welcomed!
You are invited to submit original work to the Poetry Corner. There is only one restriction: Poems ought to show a connection to Ashland and/or Southern Oregon. Your interpretation of that connection is fairly loose and mine is probably even looser! Be sure to include the title of your poem, your name as you would like it to appear, the city or town in which you reside, and, if you wish, your preferred pronouns. Finally, please submit a bio statement of less than 150 words written in the third-person.
To submit poems, send to Barry Vitcov at [email protected].
