After the Fires

Now that you are old, you have moved inland,

surrounded by trees and a river hidden below.

You walk there with your life inside you.

The scenes, the arrangements and dissertations

on the bounty of women, the flecks of their hair color,

and all the rest. With your age upon you,

your boxes of papers and pictures cut out of

the National Geographic ranging from the forties

to the present, to know the world that was yours.

It makes me remember the fires that were built

on the beaches when I was young. Huge fires

made out of what was there. I remember what

they looked like when the fires went out.

Plenty of logs left blackened, held by the wet

and high tides. I stand with the size

of the burnt-out fires the morning after

and listen to the quiet young ocean.

Notes:

This poem is part of the folio “Linda Gregg: Never Give Up Longing,” curated by David Semanki, and was published in Gregg’s 2008 new and selected volume, All of It Singing. It is reprinted here with permission of Graywolf Press. Read the rest of the folio in the April 2026 issue of Poetry.

Source: Poetry (April 2026)