When our bodies 	were still fogged
with desire 	we’d park 	in the dark 	on the barren gold hills 
and look out 	at the jeweled city 	below us. 

We were too young 	to remember 	the fires
that swept the hillside 		clean of oak and scrub.

Now, rattlers slept 	under weathered rocks
and barn owls 		the size of toddlers 
sat 	prophets 	in the remains of trees
but we couldn’t see them.  	Our cars clouded 	with breath.  

When the years 	drifted on 	and we left 	for college
and the hillside 	was sold 	leveled 	and built up:
houses rose 	ghosts on the ridge.

We weren’t the only ones 	who hadn’t seen
the remains 	of the last fires.

We, who returned, 	woke 	from our middle-aged lives
to choke of smoke; 	skies pulsing crimson.
Ash, like heavy rain, 		drifting down. 		The moon 
a red eye. 	News looping 		the same story:
fire that won’t stop. 		The whole hillside where 
we’d once parked, 		pressed our bodies against each other,
burned by a fire so hungry 	it became a wall 	that jumped 
the freeway 		to find more to burn. 

On that windy night 		we were all of the same body.
The city 	we had once looked out across 	was in us. 

Forgotten  	the Great Fire of 1870. 
Forgotten 	the Hanly Fire of 1964. 
Soon to be forgotten 	the Tubbs Fire of 2017?
Even though 	the land tells us 	that all three fires 	devoured the same path.

Now when young red tail hawks 	scream across
the air 		above our homes, 	when the barn owls
roost 		on the eaves of trees, 		and the crows
shuffle in the oaks, 		we know it is warning
or plea.  		Fire will pour its velvet tongue
across your valley 	again and again, 	even if you don’t remember.