Wild Place

Wild Place

The world’s a wild place

                Full of earthquakes, winds and fires

Where flames and tsunamis spin

                In the chasm between

Darkness and light.  We’re all living on razor wires.

The world’s full of dangers

                Dangers at home, dangers in far places

Riots, bombs, and bullets, in and out of school.

Dangers in the beauties of Mother Nature,

    Of miles and miles of

Lodge-pole pines, old and tall, dead of beetles,

                Sunny weather and warm winters.

Where majestic mountain storms create electric

                Power neither air nor ground can insulate

From the ragged bolt that ignites dry needles.

                Tree litter, the dung of a forest, lying waiting. 

The world’s an evil space

                Full of wars and hatred,

Arrows by day and the plague by night

Where lives lived well,

                And the best of strength and humor

Courage and righteousness, husbands, fathers, brothers, friends,

                Cannot stem the flood of flame

And we grieve, and stumble on in the grey

                Ash that remains

Where once walked trees, and men 

                Praying for redemption, eternity, and resurrection. 

But this is the red earth, Adam,

                Of which I am made.  I will not live

                                Would not, anywhere but here

And as a man.    Like him.    Like them. 

For Joel, on the line in the West Fork Complex

For the Granite Mountain Hotshots, down on Yarnell Hill