One, the summer fire
outside: the trees melting, returning
to their first red elements
on all sides, cutting me off
from the escape or the saving
lake
I sat in the house, raised up
between that shapeless raging
and my sleeping children
a charm: concentrate on
form, geometry, the human
architechture of house, square
closed doors, proved roofbeams,
the logic of windows
(the children could not be wakened:
in their calm dreaming
the trees were straight and still
had branches and were green)
The other, the winter
fire inside: the protective roof
shrivelling overhead, the rafters,
incadescent, all those corners
and straight lines flaming, the carefully-
made structure
prisoning us in a cage of blazing
bars
the children
were awake and crying;
I wrapped them, carried them
outside into the snow.
Then I tried to rescue
what was left of their scorched dream
about the house: blankets,
warm clothes, the singed furniture
of safety cast away with them
in a white chaos
Two fire in-
formed me,
(each refuge fails
us; each danger
becomes a haven)
