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...watching the fires burn and not drinking wine.
Actually, that's a good opening for a poem, isn't it?
I was in the Napa Valley last week
Watching the fires burn the hillside and not drinking wine.
A wedding I couldn't get out of. Not my own.
I couldn't get out of that one either.
When you get to the hotels in Napa Valley they tell you there's a wine tasting
In fifteen minutes. They don't mention the fires.
I wanted to taste the wine, but I couldn't.
A bet I made with myself: If you drink wine, you lose.
This is a sure bet. I have lost it before.
It was a wedding in wine country.
Wine was everywhere. Vines were crawling through the windows of the hotel.
I don't blame the grapes. They had no idea of their ultimate fate.
The fires started on the hill across from the vineyard
during the ceremony.
My gaze shifted from the bride and groom to the plumes of smoke throughout the words of commitment. I sought some symbolism, but there wasn't any.
Here, two people are wed; there, a hill is on fire.
The flames were at least 20 miles way.
Nothing in my world is ever threatened by real flame.
I have always created my own fire
A wet,angry fire fuled by wine.
I watched the nuptials the way I watched the flames consume those hills.
I didn't care about any of it.
I had my reasons.
There was a time when I would have drunk all the wine,
And I would have cared so much
About the fire and the death and the hope.
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