Firewatcher

My day begins and ends in twilight, high above the treeline

Static on the radio cuts out between the callsigns

North Wawona, Raymond Mountain, Mariposa Grove

I have been at Henness Ridge since I got out of danger

FBI informants wouldn’t look here for a ranger

They tapped my phone and threatened me with things I can’t recall

Now half my friends are crazy and the rest are at the bottom of a glass

And here I am, suspended with the sun careening off Tioga Pass

Calling helicopters retrofitted from their tours in Vietnam

Switching out the napalm and the agent orange for flame retardant bombs

Someday soon I’d like to reemerge from where I’m hiding

Pick up all the threads I left back where I was residing

Let the dean of my department know I’m still alive

I occupy my mind with memorizing constellations

Pretending I’m a sailor doing ancient navigation

The sky coming in early, interrupting my charade

It’s not like I don’t like it here, but no one knows me by my real name

And watching for the fires, I am losing sight of the eternal flame

Spectating destruction wrought by empire that I swore I’d try to end

My very own horizon and a forest floor that I agreed to tend

But who am I to be more than a witness

To everything that has yet to transpire?

And why do I think I deserve some power

Over anything more tangible than fire?