Hermeneutics
of Fire Miriam Bird Greenberg
When fires burned on the mountain all
season
I
kept below,
and
did what I could in my small way:
I
placed cups of water around the perimeter of my yard for the foxes;
I collected juniper berries;
rusted
kettles;
lost
leaves kept from trees I would see again;
and
feathers. I kept a church-key
for unspooling film from its spiral and
walked long distances
into
the char, heat
rising
from the earth,
to
take pictures which unveiled their dark edges behind the fog
in their bath. The birds had gone, and I
kept asking
for
rain
but
beneath the eaves of my cabin heat refused
to
give way. Fire jumpers spilt from their parachutes
into the flames, and I told myself, what
is belief, anyway,
but
the pattern of smoke
on
a low ceiling where, below, a candle
has
burnt every night
for years. Fire moves slowly,
and
with great care,
as
in flickering films of the Hindenburg spilling open onto the air,
the
cool, muscular coil
of a snake shrugging off its scales in
the rafters. Every morning
I walked in
from the forest
of
heat, its houses hollowed to beams in the burn, and asked myself
What
is belief but the pattern of smoke,
a brief pleasure? Swallows, returning,
spilt from their bearded nests
into
the low dusk
moving
carefully, unseeing,
into
what is known.