The Night The Mountains Burned

What is night time to a five-year old

in warm mountains?

The house was on a bluff under

surrounding green.

You cannot imagine the air

if you weren't there.

Town was a rifle-shot down the road.

Movies had just been moved indoors

and a Lebanese family ran the show.

The coal mines were destroying the place.

Kids running through the woods

would run into stills

and just run on.

What is a still to a five-year-old

except a sign to mind your own business

which was running and playing

with Injun ghosts

who knew Daniel Boone

and dead feuders

and cool pools of water in shade

alive with crayfish,

with endless simpicities & complications?

Father—many locals still used Pappy--

knew the Lebanese, or were they Greeks?--

who would have us to supper sometimes

when the B westerns

that toured with their cowboy stars

took the stage

facing a jolly crowd

from ten miles away

armed just as they arrived.

After supper once

two cowboys who

took up acting

let the five-year-old

and brother unholster

their single-actions,

heavy and shiny and bluish black.

“Could you put a bullet

through that keyhole over there?”

“Well, sure,” one of them said,

taking the revolver back.

He wasn't lying

and wasn't shooting.

“Do you know Tom Mix?”

“Well, sure,” one them said

and wasn't talking.

Hill folk families

came in from their

shotgun cabins

in home-spun

carrying their guns and shoes.

Someone sent Father

a carton of Maine oysters by mail.

It stunk up the PO for days.

Father laughed at the goddamned fool

who tried to send fresh oysters through

the mail.

“He's a good man and a good friend,

with a good heart,” he said,

“But there isn't much upstairs.”

Mother had one of those tightly held back

glowing small smiles.

The night the mountains burned

we were surrounded by fire

as if the stars had fallen molten & burning

on the hills.

What does a five-year-old know

of danger and disaster in Christmas lights?

E. A. Costa 3 July 2015 Granada, Nicaragua