Ashes to Ashes

I will read ashes for you, if you ask me. 

I will look on the fire and tell you from the gray lashes 

And out of the red and black tongues and stripes, 

I will tell how fire comes 

And how fire runs far as the sea
.

By Carl Sandburg

Fire all throughout the Southwest--it is burning, eating and consuming every single thing in its way.

from a distance

Residents are looking back at the fire, as they drive away with just clothes and photos.

Dry dry air, heavy and suffocating.  Sun scorching burnt earth, 100 degrees or more. Tinder dry vegetation, ready to burn.

Oh, God!  Please protect the firefighters!  

Oh, God! Bless families whose homes are burned to the ground!

Every summer, I post about wildfires.  In 2014 , we could see the flames from our house. 1994 at a school where I taught, ashes covered playground and swings. That one was called the Witch Creek Fire

Below are photos I took from our house in 2014.

Fires like these will happen until December. Last year, many wineries near Napa were ruined and burned. It took three months to extinguish that fire.

P.S. This was a re-post updated from 2014.

Ashes to ashes

source: rgbstock.com

Deborah answered her phone and recognized the nurse from the care facility.  Your father has died.  No surprise…it had been a long time coming, with a devastating illness that took his mind away..

Deborah flew in from San Francisco, arriving in time for graveside service where ashes-to-ashes, appointed time of three score and ten, verses were recited.  Then taps were played, flag was folded by Veteran of the Foreign War members, and presented to a relative Deborah did not know.

Deborah sat in a rented car and waited until everyone had done their jobs and disappeared before she could return to the grave site. 

Deborah knelt at her mother’s grave and wept.  How she had loved her mother…how her mother had loved her.  she pulled away some large bouquets from her father’s grave, overflowing with blooms.  Tenderly, she placed the flowers at Mom’s grave.

Then Deborah stood at the new grave, covered with accolades and flowers.  She whispered, “I loved you so! I did everything I was supposed to do.  I honored and obeyed you, I respected and tried to please you. Even when you were old and I was middle years, you still tried to control me, hurt me with your words.

Another pause.  “You broke my heart.”

Deborah returned to the rental car, thinking where she should go next.

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