Uvas canyon fire
Smoke settles low in wrinkled valleys
reluctant to depart the sweet sage cradle
where first blossom newly arose.
One prayer of oak and brush says,
take me into blue sky.
Today the creeks folded, and all dreaming
said simply, I have no name in this dawn.
Said, I have found this way and go.
From where the men stood mid-road,
their cars in hesitant rest on the narrow
shoulders of the country road, back
from there, across a small angled bridge,
there, I too became still – and listened.
It was a perfect silence.
It could easily be mistaken for someplace else,
yet beyond one ridge, maybe another,
something wonderous was thumping,
thumping, wanting to come close.
2002 © Neil Reid
bearly audible 
This is marvelous! I’m so glad to meet you at Pamela Villars’s party. Wonderful, wonderful work.
Very kind of you. My thanks. The CDF appropriately keeps folks at bay. However, other than voyeuristically, there was something, something that wanted to touch. A vivid desire. Reason why we traversed the strange smoked valleys to arrive so close as we could. Many ways that beauty arrives.
And I think I owe a real thanks to Pamela as well for making this day as it is.