Wind Creek

Smoke rises, most times, as long as it has heat,
before the wind can hurry it along the creek
down among the flood plain oaks riverward.
I like it best when it is fir or cedar,
but there are times when these smells cost
in memory of fear. We fought fire in troops
of ten or twenty, when I was young, and it was
wonderful work. Smoke rose in holocaustic
grandeur to the sun, casting cold shadow
on the landing, or raced along on the onshore
breeze, filing through tall firs like ghosts
of old secesh regiments. Flame would follow
after, tasting slash and brush, or licking
at the hollow wounds of dry snags. We were
a water crew, laying out grey loops of heavy
canvas on the slope, snapping together brass
tees and wyes, clicking valves, riding
the arching hoses down hill into the burn,
confident our nozzles would find out
all the banked root fires and quietly baking
duff. We knew the colors of our smokes:
white for steam, a fresh burn on fresh leaves,
fast-moving, but easy to mist down; grey
for hidden fire, buried in earth,
a hot spot, bad to step in, but easy to
cannon out; blue for trouble, seasoned wood
burning hot, hard to knock down, thirsty
for more water than the truck could send.
We loved the fires. I carried an old canteen
nested in a boiler, and brought along tea.
If water ran out, we'd gather round a hot spot
snapping twigs, and blow up a bit of flame
for brew, tasting tea and sugar, watching
across the slope how the brightly burning spots
would mimic fields of stars
as I have seen in lakes on moonless nights.
We told our stories, then; I had this one:

Once, when I worked a trail alone beside
a sulking burn, the wind turned full
around, east to west, and the grey smoke
went hot and blue, yet did not rise
but hunkered down, smothering the trail.
I felt around in darkness for the hazel-hoe
I'd lodged in a stump nearby, then crawled
downhill, hoping to find air. Air!
Lungs are flimsy things, like flowers
turned outside in, and ready to wilt
at any insult. My crawling would soon turn
to aimless thrashing, then the lying still
and no more knowing. What to do? "Go out
sidehill," a voice seemed to say. "Bury
yourself and live." I understood. Among
the old growth trees to my right my last
strength crept, to find a hemlock nurse log
crumbling into duff. The hoe struck deep,
and gouged a bowl of humus from the slope.
I shoved my face in, breathing smokeless joy
from aerated shards of pith and bark. How
long I lived as mole or worm I do not know,
but when the sun returned to warm my ears,
I rose like Lazarus, stinking, from the earth,
shouldered hoe, and went back to my work.