Mudslide

My Former Student Dies in a Mudslide

La Conchita, CA, 2005

                                               

I.

In California, rain and fire undo

the living.  In their separate seasons,

infernal winds whip truant sparks

into crematory fires

                                      that jump

from ridge to ridge, and nonchalant rains

loosen the hills and bluffs till the land

falls free of its bones.

II.

A friend called to say that sodden cliffs

collapsed, sweeping Heather away while she napped

on her couch at home in the middle

of the day, her neighborhood reduced

to an inhuman, muddy mess. 

                                                       In the news,

I read that another resident,

a man, drove to the store for milk

and returned to find his whole family

gone, all the furniture, fixtures, and foundation

of his life no longer defying

some revised angle

of repose.

III.

I have to move so many layers of debris to find her—

a dozen hard years of marriage, two babies,

dissertation, new jobs, bottles and bottles

and bottles of wine, diapers and wipes,

a dead dog and son, loud voices

in the tunnel of the night,

my own bad heart—

not sure even now

I can recover

her face.

IV.

In this, I conduct my search

and rescue, shining the halogen light

of words into the long-gone night when I called

Heather and her feckless friend down after

class for their animated

and ceaseless chat—

                                         such youthful energy and gall.

One more plank moved from the rubble of my life,

and I see her incredible outrage,

the flushed and freckled face,

the brown curls wound tight

as springs, the shock,

the injustice

of it all.