Fire Watch

Hello, listen, I’m on a field phone, do not speak until I say “over.”

Repeat, don’t talk until I say “over.” Over. Do you understand,

or was your silence intentional? Over.

Northwest of The Seven

Sisters, in a sort of bunker on stilts. Over. Last week I called in a cobra

of smoke. I was packing my gear in a panic, when

the next tower west confirmed it was only

low cloud. Over. I

get a crackling out of Alaska that sounds religious. Vladivostok. CBC.

I’ve decided I like Paganini. Over. No, leave it, or throw

it out, I won’t need it here. If ever.

Over. When storms wander

across the lower jaw of the coastal range, unloading their cargo here,

it’s like being in the engine room of something metallic

and massive. Over. My first grizzly passed

within a stone’s throw,

followed an hour later by the sucking thumps of a Parks chopper.

Nothing since. Over. Days, I rearrange stones shoaled up

at the base of the uprights and struts.

Nights, I stab at imagining

anything lovely, but end up laughing. Over. The forest goes quiet as if

waiting for me to finish. Listens hard to whatever isn’t

itself. Makes me anxious. I think

of how we ever came to . . .

[inaudible] given the arm’s length I kept joy at. Over. Affection stung

like a rasp drawn over [inaudible]. I thinned the world of it.

Don’t live as I did. Allow for terms

of relief. The black

maples aligned along streets, waddling skunks, their dark dusters

through the foxglove, your shoulder bag, shoes, the faces

of strangers; all may strike you as fibres

of a tremendous sadness.

That’s you in among the weave of it, new. Over. Is that important?

I’ve been contracted to watch this horizon and will

be here until something happens. Over.

Tell them it will. Over.