Out of the Fire

45 Years of My Words Away

by Conrad Levasseur

So how do I write about something

that took 45 years of my words & art away?

Journals, articles, poems, drawings, paintings, manuscripts,

travel sketches, a library & research files, every letter

and post card from the three kids, Margaret, family, friends.

A gold rush mine of memory

that I wanted to dig into in retirement

to shovel, rake, sift, pan and separate

all the nuggets from the general debris.

After the fire…..

only the rammed earth adobe walls

still standing.

Everything else melted,

bent, pulverized into

soft, fine ash.

Even the half dozen

cords of wood

in the open field

that were chain sawed, split, stacked

neatly in geometric rows

patiently waiting through

the drought dried summer simmering heat

to perform their duty

in the Vermont Casting wood stove…….

as soon as the first beautiful

silver frost wolves of winter

came running down

the slopes

of The Sierra

now sit

but a handful

of delicate

fine ash.

The power of the flame

to totally dissolve

a refrigerator,

liquify glass

and melt machines.

All those hundreds of hours

spent getting beyond clearance

with the undergrowth…..

inching my way through

oak, manzanita, cedar, pine,

miners misery, poison oak, star thistle

NOW….. BEYOND--BEYOND clearance.

Every nook, valley, slope, hill

creek, drainage on the acreage

nakedly exposed

beyond all my years

of intimacy with them.

There were some ghost books

that lay on their backs,

binders spread open,

at a hundred and eighty degrees,

an accordion of pages

eerily beckoning

to be picked up

and played

one last time…..

collapsing with their final breath

when delicately touched

by a finger cautiously seeking

that final secretive tale.

Somehow family history

still clung to the walls……

reminding me of archeological sites

I visited around the world.

I first thought

of leaving the walls

to be buried

by moss, lichens, vines…..

a new forest monument

to my family living

for a short period together

at the edge of the grid

my mother's ashes

spread around the property

weaving a genetic thread

from the Old World to The New.

When Margaret and I drove back the first time

and got out of the car……both of us thought

one of us whispered, "The silence…….

it's so quiet here".

Unimaginably quiet……

beyond the cherished silence

that had nurtured us

all these years.

No tracks of squirrel, skunk, raccoon, bear, coyote,

mountain lion, wild turkey, wild pig, dog, cat.

NO BIRD SONGS.

One set -- one set

out of dozens before

of deer tracks

clearly imprinted

in the ash sealed road.

Of course,

the walls did have to come down

the land did have to be cleared

leaving an open, empty field.

A haunted forest?

Or, a fresh, new

Field of Dreams?

Yet to be written.