The Quarry

On Fire

On Fire The living and the dead, the waking and the sleeping, the young and the old, these are the same; the former are moved about and become the latter, the latter in turn become the former. All things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things. —Heraclitus i. So many things we loved are gone, and who shall see them? the water tumbles over and over itself, and who can hear them in the cries of fire that splash the sky tonight? the sea washes its hands of all things one by one until, distilled to a single tear, it begins the slow descent of a woman’s cheek. She leans into a wind that smacks her face. Her scarf of billowing gray, the flag of a country no one has heard of. ii. Here is the sea. All that is human about it, the lost ships, the sighs of the drowning, the popular songs of golden sirens sunning themselves on icy shards, even the plastic six-pack wrap that entangles the speckled shorebirds, 64 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. all are expunged, diminished day by day: the sea remains pure, and purely other, an emptiness we fill and fill. iii. It’s summer. A boy is watching a woman unwind a voluminous scarf of gray—it spills its length into a stiff wind mixed with sand and bits of straw. The states of the union swirl upon her scarf, the orange deserts and purple mountain ranges and major ports, and the principal rivers. Now other countries appear, pink or green. The chill of oceans is a blue expanse, and shapes of ships move up and down the coastlines. The nations fill with people of many colors: people on farms, people in towns and cities. But who are their gods? what are their favorite songs? Are strangers welcome? Do they like dogs? I know so little! And here’s a twilit street, and an old man in a tavern, watching it snow. His patient horse stands waiting. The man enjoys his beer, but he’s wondering what the future will unfurl: the future with its snows and Model T’s. 65 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. And he’s too heavy, he has to lose some weight. The doctor has told him to lose some weight immediately— There’s a black Lab. It’s barking at the horse. I recognize that dog!— iv. —So every dog finds a new home, a new master? And yet tonight, as the dark settles on backs of people hurrying past, and lamps at each end of the block cast nets of light on nothing at all, and cars slide by, silent and hooded, I believe only in the destructive gods: the gods of January, that see winter before and after. The shopfronts with displays of toys and overcoats, each lighted window like a barge floating away on the black river, seem infinitely strange. Why are they here? Why is anything here, and is this tidy prosperous street more real, for example, than the windy flats beside the river Scamander, where the Danaans and Trojans rise, and fall, and rise to fall again, as the river jerks and whirls in tiny upspouts? 66 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. v. The baby is healthy and very fat. The temple bells are ringing, for this is Saigon, and golden children surge from the temple gates. Red monks follow, with drums. Nature is happy, the birds whistle their tiny songs of praise in celebration of the birth of the great lord— or rebirth, maybe. Does he recall a future when he’ll sit in a bar, an old man thinking of the sadness of the past and fearing the time to come? Out in the harbor, the French ship Catimat sails back and forth, her guns trained shoreward. The bells...