"The Camp Fire: Dreams, Nightmares, Hopes"

"In an instant," writes J.R. Henson, "the Camp Fire wiped out the community I lived in." He traces his emotional journey through poems and essays until "I reach a more settled location with the feeling of still being displaced from my home town."

"The Camp Fire: Dreams, Nightmares, Hopes" ($10 in paperback from Valley View Press) starts months before the fire; life is good, especially with "Gabie, the small curly-haired poodle." 

Yet during this time, Henson writes, "I kept seeing everything in my house through a cracked lens." The haunting vision subsides, not to return. 

Later, after the fire, Henson sees a picture of his house, and it's hard to believe. "I focus and enlarge the picture on the single object in the backyard. Now I can see the object to be a concrete birdbath with a concrete squirrel sitting at the top. That's when I know the burned down house is mine."

His escape on the day of the fire is more harrowing because his truck is low on gas. "I climb halfway up the last hill before reaching the main artery out of town. The feeling is like being stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel. All I want to do is get off this amusement park ride." 

He imagines Nature "intent on scorching every last home and big building.... Weeks later, Nature's rage slips away. Cleanup crews chop down healthy and unhealthy trees.... Finally, after many years, Nature wakes up just to see that nothing has changed for the better, and many of the human beings are just as inhospitable as they have been in the past." 

"God takes away the stewardship from human hands for being incompetent," the poet writes; "White hot flames cleanse the Paradise because of the promise that has been broken."

"It's hard for me to imagine hope's return," Henson writes. But it does, and with it the prospect of love. Maybe humans have been given another chance.

The author will be presenting his book at the Chico Library Meeting Room on Monday, November 11 from 7:00-8:00 p.m. and Saturday, December 7 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. Meetings are free and open to the public.