HADLEY AUSTIN

Fire Poem IV

The powerlines that feed the Mojave
Generating Station stand too tall,
warping and wefting through the landscape for miles
and miles. The air smells different
around them, tinny and electric. We parked
under them and hiked into Strawberry Canyon
carrying our waders on our backs. We spent
the day splashing through Fossil Creek,
dumping buckets of Gambel Oak leaves into
the water and counting those caught
in the natural travertine dams.
 
We smelled smoke for half an hour, but
only started running when we
saw it. The Willow Fire billowed
through the canyon. We stood around
the car, the ground was alive with electricity.
The lines had been hit somewhere we
couldn’t see but could feel. Would the
rubber tires ground the car enough that
we could touch it? Should one start
a car standing on electric earth?
 
When you encounter fire you cannot outrun
you should lay in whatever water you can find, but only
after setting a safety fire to burn nature’s tinder around you
on your own terms, starving the fire coming
for you. This is one way to live.
 
I was the first to touch the door handle,
air crackling in my sternum,  the base
of my skull tingling. There was no spark.
Everyone else piled in silently. I started the car
and we did not explode. That night
G’s mother died in a Phoenix hospital. He
did not make it in time to say goodbye.

Hadley Austin is a writer and filmmaker currently moored in Chicago. Her current film project, Demon Mineral, recently won a production grant from The Redford Center, and her written work can be found in Tipton Poetry Journal, The Antelope, and Chicago Woman Today.