I.i



If you want to change your life
	burn down your house
    Before we left for the beach	10/20/91

Ronna took off her rings
	placing them on the basin
    to be safe like her other possessions

the hot offshore winds
	meant it was warm and cool
    as we waded on the wet sand

through the agitated air
	a day that was just right
    Ronna rehearsing her solemn

procession toward me
	one arm crooked up
    on her imaginary father's

the other with an imaginary bouquet
	surrounded by frisbees
    a day happy enough

to forgive one's own karma
	forget that of others
    under a blue sky

which as we returned
	over the Devil's Slide
    was divided like a flag

half blue half ominous black
	the dense smoke a message
    to speed home

over the Bay Bridge
	to the miles-wide storm cloud
    increasing in darkness

fringed with dots of flame
	until it was almost night
    headlights the sudden emergency

warning our freeway was CLOSED
	towards the house where
    (we did not yet know this)

Cherry our unsuspecting
	house-mate from Taiwan
    had just narrowly escaped

through a burning rain 
	of eucalyptus leaves
    with no more than her stuffed bear

and a few yards up the street
	eight people burned to death
    rivulets of metal

from their melted cars 
	over the burned asphalt
    We were the last to make it through

we heard from one survivor
	who had jumped in the back
    of a stranger's pick-up

in the hushed exchanges
	as we waited for coffee
    next morning at the bed-and-breakfast

with nothing to do that day
	but to tell our tales
    (the woman two doors down

had loaded her car to the roof
	and now it was too late
    to go back inside

and find her car keys)
	tales that were fragments
    The fourth afternoon

we were taken there
	in an Oakland police car
    a wreath where our neighbor died

and the thick layer of ash
	(Could this be all our books?
    the stove?    the refrigerator?

the two sets of china?)
	as unpossessed
    as the Huron potsherds

in the black corner of an autumn field
	the burnt tiles of that Roman villa ---
    impossible to explain this

for a world not fully mindful
	that we all must die
    In a bravura gesture

of letting-go
	Ronna took out her key 
    and threw it back to the Devas

we were taken away
	the three of us crying
    like ancient warriors

or pre-adolescents
	dry sobs that since
    have come back in therapy

divorce my mother's death
	choked us that week
    at each glimpse of the naked hillside

as labile as children
	who have not yet the illusion
    we are in control

dazzled and shattered in turn
	by the ominous beauty
    of say a sunset under rainclouds

from which it was a relief
	to go back to teaching
    Pound's tears at Pisa

watching the spider at work
	the tent-peg's moving shadow
    the moon through laundry

to the nine-through-fiveness
	of a twentieth century
    the unquestioned defense of a self

as if in one week
	we had lived two different ages
    two habits of living

the comfort of Culture 
	more easily destroyed than preserved
    versus Dasein face to face

with its original nakedness	Heidegger 291; Safranski 187
	the two irreconcilable
    except when caught off guard 

my cheek unexpectedly wet
	from reading in the Chronicle
    of Tibetan prayer flags

flapping
from the remains of trees	San Francisco Chronicle 11/28/91