terror, for real

the marvelous poet & human being eileen tabios published a brief essay about fleeing the glass fire in napa valley.  eileen, her husband tom, & their dogs & cats, live in st helena, an area, napa county, that suffered a massive wildfire a few years earlier.  anna, nick & i daytripped thru this area at the start of the pandemic, to get out of the house for a few hours, by car, & drove thru the scorched hillsides of those earlier fires.  evidence that massive wildfires are more common due to a disrupted climate.  eileen writes about fleeing their home in the middle of the night as a wall of flame approaches with the speed of a jet plane.  

eileen tabios writes about the terror but, as always, her subject is love.  the love of her husband.  the love of her pets.  the love of her community.  the love of the simplicity of being alive, right now.  & she writes about the love that poetry provides, a life giving force.  there are more than a few sentences in her essay that grip my heart with joy & wonder.  i do not exaggerate.  

please read eileen tabios' a letter from napa valley, where love burns hotter than fire.