The Right Column
The other night
on the way home from
New Hampshire
there was lightening
in the distant sky.

Past Putney,
heading south, 
you can see the mountain
that's next to the
Wallmart
That's right 
over the bridge
and you have to
know 
which Wallmart
and what bridge.

The mountain
in flames
that came down the side
as if 
it were a skislope
but not a ski slope
but a place to
fight fires
caused by lightening.

Stopped at a
parkinglot
of a lumber supply
or insurance company
place
on a bluff
on the Vermont
side of the
river
(if you have to 
ask which river . . .
then . . . look at a
map)
where bunches of
folks were
stopped
and gawking
at the mountain side
aflame
through the trees
across the
river
and almost
all the way
up into 
the sky 
(above the
Walmart
below the
radio towers)

Some cherrybeard 
dough boy farmer kid 
and his even larger 
wife
said maybe it
was a cigarette.
I'm like no
why 
someone up
there on the
mountain
fighting black flies
and the cold wind.

And I saw lightning.

Maybe.

And I think it was lightening.

I didn't see
this fire
start
but saw
its effect
and firetruck
lights
on high
on the mountainside
above the river.

Above the factorys
in the fog
and the light of
the flames
against the trees
on the bank of the river
the folks
battled the flames.

In Lake Tahoe
last summer
I went to a place
on a ridge
above
a side of a mountain
where the whole
slope
had been
a conflagration.
320 or so homes
went up there
last Spring.

Many years ago
on a knoll
that you can see
near
Westfield
out beyond
Springfield
not the one in Vermont
not the one in New Hampshire
on the pike (which
if you don't know
you don't need to know)
you can see the knoll
from the highway

(I read on 
the internet
that) a guy
died
fighting a fire
on that very knoll
really was
lite
by a careless
smoker
tripper
wantta be
up on the mountain
when the fire
hits my soul.

April 25, 2008

Mountain flames of the distant sky.
Mountain flames in the distant sky.
Flaming mountainside
on a slope right above.
Rivers of water
rivers of flame
on a mountainside.