A poem from the fireline.... in memory of the 19 fallen firefighters from the Prescott, Arizona Hotshot Fire Crew
It's one of the most unraveled and well-paying jobs
I've ever done, in far flung, burned up wilderness
Areas in the San Bernardino forest,the only girl on the crew.
Hiking along in baked potato hot, foot- deep ashes
That resembled the thick texture of gray on a corpse,
And blew eerily in the wind like a shed snakeskin
To finish off wild land fires by stirring and cooling
And spraying pitiful jolts of water from bags of water
We carried, sloshing like heavy vertigo on our backs.
Struggling, to keep pace along the slow crawling underbelly
Of Rattlesnake Mountain with the psychomaniacal
Crew leader, who manically in his meth-fueled ways
Jabbered nonstop about the dangers we faced for our
$6.72 per hour wages: how many guys just like us
Have been killed by widow makers (trees with burned
Out roots that still look alive and suddenly fall.) Heatstroke,
Perhaps, like the guy they hauled off last season who later
Died on a 110 degree day for lack of water ( we carry only
A few quarts each and we are miles from a drinking fountain,)
The guy who got bit by a poisonous scorpion and developed
Gangrene (and later lost an arm) and not to mention the
On and on of how many guys had fallen down with third
Degree burns, smoke inhalation, you name it, we've got it.
And you could never be sure the fire was out. So we stirred
And sharpened our shovels and stirred some more, covered every
Spot of ground, so satisfied to watch each tiny, unearthed
Ember spark hot and red and sparkly then whoosh unto its
Puffy death. Hike on. He never said what happened to the girls,
Those of us who left behind the aprons of our domesticity.
"Mopping Up" by Ruth Nolan copyright (c) 2013 by Ruth Nolan
