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The Fires of Cucamonga

Long past midnight and I'm heading home.
Driving up Interstate 15:
Past Temecula, past Elsinore,
Through Corona, above Norco...

Cresting toward Ontario I begin to see the light--
Not the spinning beams announcing a car dealer or a new supermarket--
Rather an angry orange lurks among the hills.

I intersect the 10, climb the L.A.-bound cloverleaf,
And there it is: over the highway rail, above Ontario Mills:
Rancho Cucamonga is burning--
And it is at once beautiful and terrible.

As if the mountains wear a red lion's mane,
Flaring with Santa Ana roar...

Or Cristo strikes again, draping the hills in brazen swathes
Of orange and red and yellow fabric rippling in the wind...

Or has the California Pele herself reawakened
To deluge lava on the impudent subdivisions below?

I tear my eyes away and turn back to the road.
Ashes dance in my headlights like snow flurries,
But I'm not in wintery Kansas anymore.
It's a So Cal night in Indian summer--
It is Earthquake weather,
Like earthquakes would be preferred.

October 2003