The door of Jump 16 opens to an unnerving roar, <br />Swings aside and reveals five hundred acres of fire <br />Crowning in black spruce <br />Orange tongues of burning gases lick high into the air. <br />Coils of black smoke rolling up <br />From a flame front a mile wide <br />At the fire's head flames ninety feet high whip back and forth <br />Trying to tear themselves free from the earth. <br />At fourteen hundred feet we orbit and look down <br />The smoke column rises out of a blue-green landscape <br />To tower above us, its lower third brown and black, <br />Its middle a marbled yellow-gray, <br />Its top a crown of sunlit silver. <br />Nice to meet you.<br /><br />Lori Messenger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/smokejumper-poem-4/
