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Fire trial

The university’s classes close
because the hell of a mountain above Somerset West
is burning.

There’s a alarm ringing without end
to warn everybody to get a beating thing,
while some flee and drive away to Somerset West.

Pine plantations on the slopes
have tongues of orange flames
spreading as if going through bushes of turpentine.

The fire brigade is too small
to fight alone against the fire
and to spray with wagons, just halfway up the mountain.

Male students are equipped with petrol driven saws,
loaded on tractors with trailers and four track vehicles
that crawls up the slopes.

Everywhere there are trees falling
and are sawn down and dragged away,
before they can tumble down burning.

While a helicopter in the air
watches every thing
and everybody pray
for the wind to die down.

It’s a terrible thing to see fire jump
from branch to branch, tree to tree
and spread from east to west.

To see it become
like a big orange see of flames,
that crackling devours every thing that it touches.

It is much better when the last flames are dead
and you come half scorched and utterly tired
down from the mountain
and know that you helped to stop the fire.

[Reference: Helderberg mountain.]

poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
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