FIRE IN THE PEAT! 

Wet-kneed cypress sloughs
home to swampers, ‘gators, and peat: 
The Okefenokee,
quintessential swamp,
Now a tinder box –
Waycross, Georgia,
at the mercy,
of lightning strikes and lighted butts.

In this corner
Unseen fires,
scattered and counting,
spread smoke fog
among the pines – long leaf,
loblolly and slash,
tall, stately, tilting
at the encroaching
shroud.
Slowed traffic;
an acrid campfire ambience breeze creeping
to Jacksonville today
and Atlanta tomorrow.

Yonder,
command posts batch and sort
mixed rigs –
    Firefighting’s this and that:
    pumpers and pickups
      every known shovel and axe.
    Trucked Cats, inching to the staging areas
        four-hundred-fifty-dollar-an-hour dozers arched
        blades down on flat beds
    await 
   
California Shoshones    
the Wyoming and Minnesota Big Rock Units,
Texans and the Carolina DNR –
    Firefighters sporting badges and tees,
starting the day
at Shoney’s Breakfast Buffet.

    Refrigerator art on the walls –
    reviews from grateful schools –

     rave:
        “Our heroes are firefighters”
        “We love our firemans”
        “Our house”
    saved.

At the bell
crews rise
head rigs to the trees
go toe to toe with the smoke and heat.
They, need no sleep,
are easily flared by the smallest breeze.                                                               .

Day’s end – no worse.
The heroes’ hope,
some calamitous douse
to restore the swamp and send them out.

Can you bring yourself to pray
for a hurricane?

Dennis R. Keefe
7/31/08, 5/20/07