Low-Intensity Grassfires, Early 1980s

We stood witness behind the wide crack
of what served as a firewall on some summer days.
The structure separated my grandmother’s lot
from the sprawling field of tall grass in Lagro.
Grassfires accented the hot season
but we were always safe:
a dirt road between the cinder block wall
and the grassland’s edge
served as our moat of solid ground
that the fires were helpless to cross: their frenzied tips 
confined to licking air at a distance.
 
That scorching early afternoon, my cousins and I watched
the grassfire advance towards us with the rage of the betrayed.
It felled lines of tall grass, one clump after the other:
emaciated prisoners standing in line mowed down 
by a volley of bullets fired by a merciless army.
We were a captive audience: little children standing 
shoulder to shoulder behind the gap in the wall.
And the light wind sufficed to blow away 
the smoke from our wide-eyed faces.
We only had to cover our sweaty noses 
with our hands from time to time.
We gazed at the relentless march
to the end of the grassland
where the firemen snuffed it out. 
 
For an hour we were at attention,
enthralled by nature’s spectacle.
Our innocence still in command,
we believed, They won’t get us.