Smokejumper Poem 4 Poem by Lori Messenger

The door of Jump 16 opens to an unnerving roar,
Swings aside and reveals five hundred acres of fire
Crowning in black spruce
Orange tongues of burning gases lick high into the air.
Coils of black smoke rolling up
From a flame front a mile wide
At the fire's head flames ninety feet high whip back and forth
Trying to tear themselves free from the earth.
At fourteen hundred feet we orbit and look down
The smoke column rises out of a blue-green landscape
To tower above us, its lower third brown and black,
Its middle a marbled yellow-gray,
Its top a crown of sunlit silver.
Nice to meet you.