He hid the fire in a tall hollow stalk of fennel,
out of the sight of the great one who delights in thunder.
—Hesiod, Works and Days
In those mountains he met others walking in the same direction. Backpacks, black
plastic garbage bags, food sacks, a girl with two hard-boiled eggs, the shells
flaking off. Some wore t-shirts from the sports teams of the West, and one man
still carried an orange life jacket. The hunted, wayward god stood beside a mother
who held her infant before her the same way he held the stalk that carried the
embers he had stolen. He noted dry myrtle along the side of the road, and saw a
ground that seemed soft enough for them to sleep on. There would be at least this
much tonight, twigs for a fire, perhaps water for tea, some warmth in the morning.
Fred Marchant is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent of which is Said Not Said (Graywolf Press). Marchant is also the editor of Another World Instead (Graywolf), a selection of early poems by William Stafford. He is co-editor with Jennifer Barber and Jessica Greenbaum of Tree Lines (Grayson Press), an anthology of contemporary American poems focused on trees and forests. His poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the Braving the Body (Small Harbor Publishing)), poems about illness and resilience. A co-translator (with Nguyen Ba Chung) of several contemporary Vietnamese poets, Marchant lives in Arlington, MA.
