Candle for California
“… an immense column of flame, beautifully spired on the edges, and tinted
a rose-purple hue… forming a grand spectacle, especially on a dark night…”
(John Muir, The Mountains of California, 1894)
I lit a candle tonight for the fire
victims in California.
I lit a candle as light for those
whose lights were quenched by the power grid,
claiming darkness prevents flame.
I lit a candle as warmth for those
whose blankets of ash are shroud not robe,
whose blankets of smoke smother.
I lit a candle and dipped the match
in clean water, clear water,
water that flowed without guilt from the tap,
water identical to the kind locked up
in polyethylene, golf grass, smog,
the kind we shit in and then flush.
I lit a candle. It did not trip
the smoke or carbon monoxide alarms.
(I should probably do a battery check.)
I lit a candle that did not show
the live oak limbs, redwood boughs,
the blood-love blush of manzanita,
foxtail, coyote bush, rattlesnake grass,
the poppy furled like a desperate plea,
the poppy clenched like a furious fist.
I lit a candle for the cattle burned
and horses burned
and dogs burned
and deer, doves, diamondbacks burned.
I lit a candle for the bees burned
and wasps burned
and worms, mites, mold burned,
the condor chicks and tule elk burned,
the pigeons and the rats burned.
I lit a candle for the cars burned
—Teslas, Priuses, Hummers, Chevys--
and for the bassinets and wheelchairs burned,
the crutches and the tricycles burned,
the school buses and hearses burned.
I lit a candle for the homes burned.
I lit a candle for the homeless burned.
I lit a candle for the money burned
and money spurned,
for the federal aid flagged unearned,
insurance claims stamped unreturned.
I lit a candle for the books burned
and the glow unveiled a palimpsest,
words on words on smudged words:
soot, slag, cinder, ember
dross, char, clinker, coal
ash, ash, ash, ash…
I lit a candle for my own last house,
for the fire’s nimble drug that danced
from faulty pole through the line’s vein
to socket, desk, curtain, roof,
and for the neighbor who saw it and called
before all was lost, before all my life
like theirs and theirs and theirs and yours
crumbled when I picked it up,
lingered black beneath the nail,
clung to lungs like a hateful name.
I lit a candle tonight for the fire
victims in California.
I lit a candle,
then put it out.
[Capable of being deformed continuously and permanently in any direction]
“They had seen every sort of animal caught,
but had never before seen a man caught by himself.”
(Charles Darwin)
Every day for lunch as a teen
at school I ate a plastic cup
of applesauce, and then another
plastic cup of chocolate pudding.
The first had a tearaway foil lid,
the second a plastic film that peeled
back slowly and sometimes tore
like fishskin. I used a white bone
plastic spoon for both, the same
one at least one day each week:
I took them home each time to wash
like sins, cleansed, reused as though
the refusal to throw more plastic away
compensated for, condoned, forgave
two-hundred eighty applesauce cups,
two-hundred eighty pudding cups
the year we studied the Great Auk,
the year we studied the Atlas Bear.
Kent Leatham is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad, including Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Fence, Able Muse, and Poetry Quarterly. He studied poetry at Emerson College and Pacific Lutheran University, and currently teaches writing at California State University Monterey Bay, located on the traditional land of the Ohlone, Costanoan Rumsen, and Amah Mutsun peoples (who are not dead). He is pansexual. His work can be found at www.kentleatham.weebly.com.
“… an immense column of flame, beautifully spired on the edges, and tinted
a rose-purple hue… forming a grand spectacle, especially on a dark night…”
(John Muir, The Mountains of California, 1894)
I lit a candle tonight for the fire
victims in California.
I lit a candle as light for those
whose lights were quenched by the power grid,
claiming darkness prevents flame.
I lit a candle as warmth for those
whose blankets of ash are shroud not robe,
whose blankets of smoke smother.
I lit a candle and dipped the match
in clean water, clear water,
water that flowed without guilt from the tap,
water identical to the kind locked up
in polyethylene, golf grass, smog,
the kind we shit in and then flush.
I lit a candle. It did not trip
the smoke or carbon monoxide alarms.
(I should probably do a battery check.)
I lit a candle that did not show
the live oak limbs, redwood boughs,
the blood-love blush of manzanita,
foxtail, coyote bush, rattlesnake grass,
the poppy furled like a desperate plea,
the poppy clenched like a furious fist.
I lit a candle for the cattle burned
and horses burned
and dogs burned
and deer, doves, diamondbacks burned.
I lit a candle for the bees burned
and wasps burned
and worms, mites, mold burned,
the condor chicks and tule elk burned,
the pigeons and the rats burned.
I lit a candle for the cars burned
—Teslas, Priuses, Hummers, Chevys--
and for the bassinets and wheelchairs burned,
the crutches and the tricycles burned,
the school buses and hearses burned.
I lit a candle for the homes burned.
I lit a candle for the homeless burned.
I lit a candle for the money burned
and money spurned,
for the federal aid flagged unearned,
insurance claims stamped unreturned.
I lit a candle for the books burned
and the glow unveiled a palimpsest,
words on words on smudged words:
soot, slag, cinder, ember
dross, char, clinker, coal
ash, ash, ash, ash…
I lit a candle for my own last house,
for the fire’s nimble drug that danced
from faulty pole through the line’s vein
to socket, desk, curtain, roof,
and for the neighbor who saw it and called
before all was lost, before all my life
like theirs and theirs and theirs and yours
crumbled when I picked it up,
lingered black beneath the nail,
clung to lungs like a hateful name.
I lit a candle tonight for the fire
victims in California.
I lit a candle,
then put it out.
[Capable of being deformed continuously and permanently in any direction]
“They had seen every sort of animal caught,
but had never before seen a man caught by himself.”
(Charles Darwin)
Every day for lunch as a teen
at school I ate a plastic cup
of applesauce, and then another
plastic cup of chocolate pudding.
The first had a tearaway foil lid,
the second a plastic film that peeled
back slowly and sometimes tore
like fishskin. I used a white bone
plastic spoon for both, the same
one at least one day each week:
I took them home each time to wash
like sins, cleansed, reused as though
the refusal to throw more plastic away
compensated for, condoned, forgave
two-hundred eighty applesauce cups,
two-hundred eighty pudding cups
the year we studied the Great Auk,
the year we studied the Atlas Bear.
Kent Leatham is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad, including Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Fence, Able Muse, and Poetry Quarterly. He studied poetry at Emerson College and Pacific Lutheran University, and currently teaches writing at California State University Monterey Bay, located on the traditional land of the Ohlone, Costanoan Rumsen, and Amah Mutsun peoples (who are not dead). He is pansexual. His work can be found at www.kentleatham.weebly.com.