Out of the Fire

Helen Bonner

                Sifting Ashes

After the fire,  the Butte Fire, the brute fire,

raged through our woods --

                wild, hell-raising beast, devouring all --

We waited while it cooled,

And waited 

                till our hearts could bear to see

                there was nothing to see

                of all that had once been

                “Everything.”

Woods, house, cars, gardens, paintings, tools, 

All the beauty we had built together.

                Gone.

Then we waded in to sift the ashes, found

a coin collection, jewelry, cuff links, badges of success,

 toppled into charred piles

 of what had once been

 a mahogany desk, 

Beyond the metal skeleton of a flower-arched gate

where once our garden flourished,

a sculpted lion, proud as ever, 

a brassy praying angel, 

and serene Buddha

survey the blackened earth. 

If you asked them, they would say,

“Look at each other.  

You have everything.”