From the Archive: Three Poems by Jonathan Pankratz

Fire season is here again in British Columbia. With temperatures rising and summer just around the corner, we are reminded of poet Jonathan Pankratz’s work about his experience as a forest fire fighter, poems that are as unique as they are haunting.

From, “Wildfire on Evacuated Reserve:”

We parked in the last untorched valley
to guard the cluster of housessurrounded by dead grass.
All night

rez dogs circled us,
their ragged forms slipping
through the hanging smoke
like landbound sharks
until our truck growled back.

See all the poems here.