Fire Camp
by John Straley

Years ago now, I worked in the Cascade range
running a packstring up the side hills
taking supplies to the fire crews.
Thinking I was just headed up
for the day the fireboss shook my hand
and gave me a paper sleeping bag
to lay out on the ledge above camp.

I turned out the string in the meadow
with a bell and hobbles on the mare,
the mouse brown mules watching her every move,
skittery around the smell of smoke.
The fire just a haze of light
like a small town behind the hill: a few thin
sparks zagging upwards, and burning out of sight,
while I slept in my crackling bag.

I was up before dawn, stumbling towards the bell
the nightsong of the crickets still echoing
in that cold morning of another hot day
and when I found the mare, she swung
her anvil head towards the grain
I pretended to carry in my hat and
lunged her two cuffed front legs
over the rocky ground
to come to me.

I turned sixteen on that fire
complained about being there then
And now I complain of other things;
my knees, and joints, the sleepiness
that overcomes me some afternoons.
But sometimes before the sun breaks
over the hill, I can still hear the ringing
of that bell mare in the meadow
during my first fire season
when I knew for certain
I was alive.