Sunday afternoon. I’m about to jump in the shower when the phone rings. There’s a fire about three miles from here, my neighbor says, matter-of-fact, but with an edge. Sure enough, I see black and white smoke out the window. I get dressed and walk up the hill, where I join a grey squirrel perched on its hind legs looking west. Cal Fire helicopters zoom past, some carrying water drops, others firefighters. Planes release fire retardant, dousing the hillside pink. It’s a swift response to a rural brush fire—what could have become a massive blaze, given the strong winds, stops at 39 acres. Four structures gone. Rumor has it that someone using a bee smoker started it all. My go bags are packed, and I plan to keep them that way.

never not 
fire season 
California blues  

Cynthia Anderson

has published 14 poetry books, most recently Heartwood (Cholla Needles, 2026). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net Anthology, and the Touchstone Awards. Cynthia is co-editor of A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens (Green Poet Press). She has lived in California for over 40 years.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Selections from The Missing Peace by Cynthia Anderson in Mother Memory (Art Exhibit Series, 4/10) curated by Toti O’Brien, in Oyster River Pages (22 July 2025)

⚡ Three Memoir Poems by Anderson in Verse-Virtual (May 2021): “Meant to Be”; “My Lot”; and “Copper Teakettle”

⚡ The Mistress in Verse-Virtual (November 2020)

⚡ Overnight at White Pocket in Poetry and Places (31 October 2020)

⚡ Mythic Rockscapes series of four chapbooks with poetry by Cynthia Anderson and fine art photography by her husband, Bill Dahl: Mythic Rockscapes: Barker Dam Trail, Joshua Tree National Park (July 2015); Shared Visions and Shared Visions II (May 2016); and Hidden Valley: Joshua Tree National Park (September 2016)

⚡ The Transmitter: Cynthia Anderson Answers the Questions That Matter in The Coil (23 June 2018)

⚡ Queen of the Mist by Anderson in The Coil (24 October 2016), one of 12 Finalists for The 2016 Charter Oak Award for Best Historical, hosted by Alternating Current Press; poem was printed by Alternating Current Press in *footnote; A Literary Journal of History, no. 2 in 2019.

⚡ Index of Contributors, with links to dozens of Cynthia Anderson’s poems that appear here in MacQueen’s Quinterly, including cheribun, haibun, tanka prose, free verse, prose poems, cherita, cherita sequences, haiku, senryu, and split sequences