Thomas Fire - Notes from Santa Barbara

Winter Wonderland

Day 4 (or Day 6 if without my early week business travel)

of living under a cloud of falling ash

from people’s lost homes in Ventura,

oak trees and chaparral from the national forest,

petroleum excavation sites,

burning rings on palm tree trunks,

drifting like feigned holiday cheer

same color as the snow fallen

on my friends, back in Atlanta,

dusting our parking lots

with its surreal dementia

I drove the other day, home from Los Angeles

along the 101 toward Carpinteria,

greeted by the pinkish lunar haze awaiting

at home, like a stray disturbing houseguest

you just can’t shake. Days later its tension-familiar

glaze still disturbs the dawning day,

so you sigh and resign

away any remaining dark novelty

Along the road that day, the burning

palms near beachfront homes along the 101, a sort

of dark bid at humor from the forces of the fire,

after running out of future hellscape to scorch

as it reached the ocean,

somehow surpassing green oasis citrus groves nearby

The next morning, I woke up with haze in my head,

faintly aching and feeling like the sky surrounding my eyes

and nostrils

I texted Melissa to find out if the university had masks,

they did but so did the tent in front of Costco- teal blue,

annoying the bridge of your nose even when bending

the thin metal sheet at the top

I got two and went back again for more to take

to Becky and the kids, who ended up bailing for Oxnard

by Sunday- she said like coming out of a cloud of trauma,

seeing the sun again once clearing south of Ventura

She sent me a picture of the mushroom cloud behind her

that we are still sitting under, Melissa and I

We’ve driven around the city,

noticing the slow drain of people- wearing masks mostly,

less and less of them and their cars

Any novel concept of living among such a mind-blowingly expansive

natural disaster, eroding as a new day unfolds with more haze and smoke,

and lingering advancement of fire

I hesitate to say natural disaster,

I don’t think it started itself

Every day the school systems text, call and email,

cancelling the next round of school, until the time runs out

and they’ll just have to cancel until the new year

But work must go on – I heard official notices have been emailed

in some circumstances, requiring vacation time or unpaid leave

even in evacuation

I can work from home, but others should go in,

or take up to three pretend sick days before a required doctor’s note

People’s homes and lives, hundreds of square miles of habitat, destroyed by this and others,
so unwittingly pervasive this year
among other myriad starts darkening days,
we remain fortunate in the acquisition of the past,
safe keeping of the present
with nothing owned or owed from the future

Matt Mauldin
12/2017
Santa Barbara, CA