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

SEASONAL AFFECTIVE ORDER

SEASONAL AFFECTIVE ORDER

A daughter brings spring, March twenty one

Older sister’s October birthday intones autumn
Big brother, a firecracker in the July sun

And the wedding that started it -- December twenty one

DRK, 12/6/16

NOT QUITE STILL LIFE

Across the room a potted plant,
petals pressed against the window,
looks in at me,
drawing attention to the maple tree.
Its leaves acknowledge the breeze
stirring two rocking chairs
which flank the potted scene.

DRK
7/21/16

JULY FOURTH

JULY FOURTH

We let Blake decide
Whether three-year-olds should best
Watch fireworks inside

DRK
7/4/2013

EMILY PROCEEDING

EMILY PROCEEDING

Row after row, caps and gowns identical

The Okemos High School class of 2016

Process to Pomp and Circumstance

And somehow emerge as individuals

Each with a past unique

Is reminded by speakers of what they shared

Sitting among friends and those who cared 
Not alphabetized

They move across the stage

Away from the familiar

Name after name

Toward futures largely personal

I wonder how many will

Get the words of the Alma Mater

Memorized

DRK

June 5, 2016

EMILY'S BIG DAY

EMILY'S BIG DAY

Graduate at one

Celebrate, anticipate

Go to work at four

DRK 6/5/16

WHERE'S LAZARUS?

                                            WHERE'S LAZARUS?

A new infant, I

Strained an old circle

A beggar, whose benefactors gave                

To let my childhood grow.

Indebted early

Now a benefactor

I encounter

Thirst on every corner

Those once powerful now want to know

Where's Lazarus?

I can’t go home to mother’s meals

I have to pay her due

And assisted living rent.

I can’t go back to the U again

They want to know,

Have I made my last will and . . .

They print names ranked by contribution size,

Wine and dine, name a building after you.                                      

So I, ranked,                                         

Rank and dip my water to

My family, the local needy

And favorite diseases

Arts, culture, multiple schools

And several churches

Wait.  Name a building after me?

What do you say, kids?

Dennis R. Keefe

May 1, 2016