Thoughts on the Fort McMurray fire

As I write this the city of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta is in flames.  I've always been afraid of fire and to know the forest, that seems to be a place of solace and peace, is burning taking a city with it brings nightmare images. I look around my study at all the stuff and, while it is only stuff, it comforts me. Photos of my mother, my husband, my cousins and my friends hang on the walls. There is a painting of a polar bear labelled "Iceland 1945," that belonged to my father.  A friend of a friend escaped Fort Mac with only her purse and her vehicle.

This disaster is not about me.  I am safe hundreds of kilometres to the south and the pavement outside the house is still wet from a morning rain. Yet one of the things we humans share is our ability to imagine and as I look around me and hear Odie whistle his morning greeting from the other room, I do not stop my imagination from going to the heat, smoke, and terror of the fire.  What would I take? What would I most miss?  I hope I never have to find out.  I'm sure the people of Fort Mac hoped they would never have to answer those questions either. Now their homes are gone.

I wonder if the United Church my father helped raise money to build in the 1970's has been engulfed in flames. I see again the mirror my dad had beside his desk with a Fort McMurray sticker on it. These are small connections but they are connections none-the-less. What will we do now, the people of Alberta, the people of Canada to help those who have lost so much?  In Canada, a first-world country we don't expect that disaster can strike. We have so much, so much freedom, so much wealth, so much technology and yet, one spark can take all those things away. It leaves me humbled, horrified and hopeful.

When I first heard about the fire, lines from a poem by Christopher Wiseman came back to me. I've been thinking about giving away my poetry collection, haven't looked at it for years, and yet I was very glad to be able to walk into the basement, open up a box of books and find it.

This poem was written in the late 1980's, still its lines came back to me and speak to how humans in need and those who can help, treat each other. I hope Chris will forgive me for quoting the poem here. In addition to helping with practicalities in times of disaster, we can fiercely insist on making art for art nourishes what is best in us. My thoughts are with the people of Fort McMurray and all those who feel the impact of the fire.

The Fall and After

The longest day of 1987. A Sunday.

The beach warm and crowded. The tide out.
And there's a man, I'd guess over eighty,
In a suit, a tie, and polished shoes,
Walking, with a stick, slowly towards the sea.
He comes to eight stone steps leading down,
Begins, trips, pitches right onto the road

Below, landing face first, lying still.
No glasses, thank God, my first thought,
Right above him, seeing it all happen
From a third floor window, no phone there.
People come quickly, touch, then turn him,
Blood pouring from his head, his face
Scuffed and filthy, his suit knee torn out.

His eyes don't focus, seem sightless,
But he moves a little, as if in quiet protest
At being there in the road like that.
Someone runs for a phone, another finds Kleenex
And holds it to his head. They gather round
And for a moment it looks like a big family,
He an elder, hurt and needing help,

Trying to sit up, to not be a nuisance.
Now a woman, about thirty, is sitting holding him,
Bare arms cradling his head to her white blouse,
Lips moving as she talks quietly to him,
And I am suddenly crying, surprised
By the thick heavy sobs shaking me.
At last they come and take him away.

A few stitches and a new suit. But is that all?
I think perhaps he'll never try again
To walk towards the sea on a Sunday afternoon.
And the next day his blood is still there,
Though you couldn't tell it from the oilstains,
And people go down the steps and tread on it,
Walking across the road to the beach.

What will I take from this? Just how he
Plunged forward, as if diving into water,
Just knowing how old we get, how bodies fail us,
How people will run to help, and do their best,
That we are, deep down, still gentle,
And, in the end, all we can do is watch,
Say what words we can, and wait until they come.


Christopher Wiseman
Saint Andrews, Scotland
published in Missing Persons
copyright 1989
Sono Nis Press
Victoria, British Columbia