Vox Populi
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Greg Lobas: 07:30 — Six Degrees of Separation
Before the day springs open
like a jack-in-the-box playing heavy metal,
I like to walk past the slats and spaces
in the picket fence on Harnagy Street
where seven-story oaks shelter tiny front yards.
I feel the modest thrum and bustle
of commerce on the loose,
the rumble of a distant freight train,
a meditation of pavement.
I keep track of tender efforts at landscaping,
petunias to lift the working-class neighborhood
above its station like children playing dress up.
People step out of their dreams,
screen doors slamming.
They fill up with the morning light of their expectations.
Some step blindly into cloudbursts
that change their lives forever.
I got hugged once walking in to work
right there at French and Prospect.
I walked up behind a woman sobbing so hard her body
shuddered as if an 18-wheeler rolled through her ribcage.
Sorrows like that should wait at least until noon.
I asked her what the matter was, and she blurted out
the early morning fire that tore through her sister’s home,
killing both her kids. The sudden horror
was too much to compass sitting still,
so the woman walked her grief out on the street.
She clung tight to me when I told her I fought that fire.
My pager jolted me awake at 4 a.m.
My best friend Dan helped pull the children
from the second story window,
little, smudged Raggedy Ann and Andy.
We had done every futile thing
we could. I had just cleaned up
and was walking in to start my regular shift.
She held me close.
Perhaps some essence of her darlings clung to me
like the smoke I couldn’t quite wash out of my hair.
I held her, too, trying my best to transmit what she longed for,
so she would know that in a world where the traffic
carries on all the same, her small deaths mattered.
At the station we washed stacks of dirty fire hose.
Guys rehashed the four a.m. events
in tones of cool adrenaline. I watched the char
swirl down the floor drain and thought about the woman
who walked the aimless walk of the stricken
and poured herself out upon a stranger,
degrees of separation erased
by fire, death and pavement.
I live in my district. These are my people.
They are not much, and as easily as not
they can piss you off, but they are mine,
and I love them.
Greg Lobas worked as a career firefighter and paramedic for thirty years, attaining the rank of captain. He lives with his wife Meg and their dog Sophie in the foothills of western North Carolina. His full-length poetry collection Left of Center is the winner of the 2022 Dogfish Head Prize.
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Wow. For some reason this came up today and I am thankful for it. I think of the house next door to my son’s in a tough neighborhood. When they were considering his bid and those of the house flippers, the house burned, a child died, two others heavily scarred and the house flippers left and my son was able to move into the neighborhood where he is a pastor. And his children play with those kids and he walks the neighborhood, has saved lives with narcan, and I don’t know where I am going with this except to feel for the families who lose children to fire.
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Thanks, Barbara! The loss of a child is the most painful experience any of us have, I think.
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Surprising and powerful poem. Thank you gor sharing. I am ordering the book—
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Thank you, wm, start at the beginning and read in sequence. A story line develops. I hope you enjoy it.
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I will do that. And I like writing that way as well. The forward thrust of writing poems for a sequence keeps me going.
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A surprisingly quiet poem, even with the images of street/city noise–a poem so awake, filled with such compassion and heart and sorrow💔
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Thank you, Lisa. People expect the book to be full of “war stories”. I’m not saying there isn’t any of that, but for me, it’s primarily a book about compassion. Sometimes offered, sometimes withheld.
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Thanks, Lisa. I agree completely.
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Wow! just Wow! What an ending!
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Yes, it’s a great poem.
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I’m so glad you thought so. True story.
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Oh my god, this poem leaves me breathless.
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Me too, Valerie.
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Valerie, it’s comments like your that make writing worthwhile. Thanks so much.
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Valerie, it’s comments like yours that make writing worthwhile. Thanks so much.
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Sometimes it seems that narrative poetry is going out of style, dismissed as not challenging enough. But then a poem like this comes along, restoring our faith in plain talk and complicated love.
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Well-said, my friend: plain talk and complicated love.
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Thank you, Louise. It was a challenge in writing the book to convey a lot of information and keep it from becoming prose.
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A challenge you met brilliantly, Greg!
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Moving.
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Thank you, Robbi. I appreciate it.
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What an astoundingly caring poem. Such amazing descriptions, such heart. And craft!
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I agree, Laure-Anne. Such heart.
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LaurAnne, clearly you appreciate the work that goes into this art form. Thank you.
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“They are my people…..and I love them.” Thanks Greg, I get it and feel the same. Someone long ago asked me why I was willing to talk to people who very clearly don’t share my very left values and politics and I replied, “Because they’re my people, it’s that simple.”
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Thanks, Mel. I feel the same way.
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That’s it. It’s all about that human connection.
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From where I sit, one of the best poems I’ve
ever read on this site.
Maybe I didn’t say finest—-
But with regard to what fills and feeds,
Best!
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Thanks, Sean. I like Greg’s poetry for its inspiring practicality, the poetry of real people…
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Smiling, Sean. Thank you!
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