Summer Lightning

In the morning while it's still cool

we hose down the yard, watch a red sun

crest the ridge, haloed in wildfire smoke

that drifted 200 miles and stalled

here against the mountains.

A house fly is walking across the table,

six tiny feet leaving tracks in the yogurt.

One cat has already eaten a hummingbird.

If you think about joy long enough,

maybe death will make sense:

a matter of balance. The deer caught

in that fire outside Redding, the rabbits

and bear cubs, king snakes, and you know

when 30 boats melt at anchor in Whiskeytown,

fish in that lake have perished.

Displaced blue herons, mergansers.

I am not asking forgiveness

for the hummingbird. I plant the flowers

and water them — who else would come

for their nectar? And what cat wouldn't leap

at the chance? In this world there is order

wherever you look: cause, effect, logic,

consequence. A dry winter, and a car backfire

or summer lightning ignites just one branch,

which bends in the wind the flames create

to brush another. A few hours later

it's 45 square miles and uncontained.

The fire jumps the river after supper

headed downtown and cars crawl away

from their homes in a dark lit by headlights

and flung sparks, chased by the crackle

and gathering roar, song of a small city burning.