Sun Flow Ire

This photo of the "fire fighter's sun" was taken from our North Lethbridge yard. The sky reflects the devastation from about 35 Alberta wildfires (5 considered out-of-control) in the summer of 2003. In particular, are the effects of the Lost Creek wildfire which resulted in the evacuation of Hillcrest area residents.

Fire Gypsy streaming audio

Charmingly beautiful sun, golden sunflower
turning to watch the flaming dance of the fire gypsy.
The audience forgets your destructive danger
they accede and mirror your beauty as you break loose
spreading and spreading wildly your chaotic order.

Cloned images are flickering inside, fire gypsies
Jetty through their disappearing green timbered stages
Restless seek a denser stage to linger longer.
Only remain alive moving and procreating,
you gracefully leap and give birth with every footprint.

Your children eat the flesh of the living womb they
are dropped into, leaving a uterus smuttied by their creation.
Look but don't touch these grounded stars
so captivating one forgets passage of time
mesmerized by the renewing flames overpowering.

You impulsive self-assertive beauty, are
shamed of nothing; You are beautiful and know it.
The power of your light, the power of your heat
destroys all those who dare to touch the white and the red
turning to a coal black by the shock of your power.

Round glowing sun heating, ground flowing fire beating
Helian sky weeping glowing wild ember fire-red tears
Goddess-flames ghostly pass through one another.
In a heartless dragon dance you decorate the sky
with your destruction of land until your fickle-hearted dance

changes your direction with only a shift of
the wind you change your mood and give birth in a land that
floats underneath you to touch your white red power
Red helian sky, spellbound sunflower asthmatic
from your gypsy fire dance, breathing your Midas coal flour.

August 6, 2003
Marlene Lacey

Disastrous as they were, the Alberta fires do not compare to the BC fires. Expelled Kelowna residents watched their neighbourhood aflame, the fireworks mirroring their display over the expanse of the Okanagan Lake. Like parched children gobbling ice-cream at an all-you-can-eat dessert bar, the flames ravenously licked their neighbourhood. Firefighters were trapped. The destruction of the area now rich with fire stories. I wonder if any stories that come out of it can be as well researched and written as Norman McLean's Young Men and Fire. Have a look at this excerpt describing "...Sallee, having reached the top of the ridge, looked back and saw the foreman enter his own fire and lie down in its hot ashes to let the main fire pass over him."