Whose Fault?, by Taylor Graham

Whose Fault?

I watched on TV as the land burned.

Ponderosa and incense cedar

turned to towering torches in flame-smoke sky.

The diggins’ ridge not far from home,

where we explored glory holes amid bear clover,

and trained our search dogs,

and walked for meditation, for grounding….

And here it is,

in black-gray-crimson blurred with smoky bright,

firefighters tiny dark figures

against the flames, to save us from ourselves.

We who lived there, settling into nature

where no house had been, driving our cars

to town and city.

Wildland-urban interface I never

heard of before we came.

Here it is, in prints and looping video

as fire season loops again upon us.

What dare I write?

-Taylor Graham